Cole Smash!
by Packerfan95
Summary: What happens when the Ninja of Earth has come into contact with radiation? He begins to feel different and change into something unexplainable. The Ninja are worried for his transformations. But when word spread out, an unknown cooperation wants to hunt Cole down. Can the Ninja help Cole on time to fix him and his anger? Or will they be too late before he loses himself completely?
1. Prologue

**Hello readers, Packerfan95 is back. And I now have a new set of stories. But each ninja has their own story. So let's start with the Ninja of Earth, Cole. Oh and fair warning, my OC, Lucas Wu, and Kaitoukiwi's OC, Laurie, shall be in these series. So let's begin here. What happens after our earth ninja becomes contacted with gamma radiation? A monster has been rumoring across Ninjago while Cole has been missing. And an unknown cooperation seeks this monster. Can the Ninja find out what the monster without Cole's help? Or is it Cole himself? Find out what happens in 'Cole Smash!' I don't own anything but my OC Lucas.**

* * *

**Prologue: A New Discovery**

Fluorescent bulbs buzzed brightly on the ceiling tile panels. Diodes and computers whirled to life with faint lights on the screens. The musty tiled floor was filled with Styrofoam cups of bitter black coffee with wrappers of fast food burgers. Over in a tight corner of the laboratory stood an aquatic tank of starfish with missing limbs or stubs as their regeneration cycle was taking hold. Along with sea sponges with chunks missing of their soft, sponge tissues. On the metal table next to it lies the missing limbs of the echinoderms after dissection to obtain the cells. With the cells being analyzed, two cellular biologists walk through a sliding glass door with it hissing behind them, sealing them outside from the unknown awaiting.

One biologist was a young female in her late teens, about seventeen the most, with a GPA or grade point average of a genius. She had raven-black hair tied in a ponytail to keep her long shoulder length hair out of her face. Eyes were a rich light blue color that gleamed after each blink on her non-mascara lashes. Her nose was small on her high-cheek boned face with lips full and pink on her lighten skin. "Incision has been made on the subject." she announced while adjusting her white lab coat to sit on the office chair by her terminal computer and removed the plastic I.D. card to insert into the computer and typed in the passcode.

The other biologist was male in his late twenties with a PhD at a young age. His hair was long and combed over to the back of his head to reveal his forehead. His eyes were deep as hazel could ever be with a square jaw. "Nanomeds are prepared and Roger 9 is ready." he said, pounding on the keys on the keyboard with his fingertips and heard the machine behind the sealed doors running to life and could see it through the Plexiglas windows. "Sealing lead doors."

Behind the two inch Plexiglas stood a machine that was going to help the world. In the back of the lead safe room was a circular egg-shaped radiation converter with a small plastic bag inflated with air attached to the top of the converter. But inside the bag were the Nanomeds that a year of research has come to enhance the immune system of a human being. But in order for it to pass, it must be tested on a small amphibious frog; Roger 9. The frog stood patiently on a small pedestal with a glass dome over him in the middle of a gamma radiation transfer chamber. And a small incision, about an inch long, was lashed across his wet skin with no blood welling out.

A red light began flashing outside the chamber with the two lead doors hissing aloud as they were being sealed. Trapping the experimental frog inside. Unaware of his fate. The multiple computer monitors next to the chamber hummed to life with a view of the frog. Some were to tell how the procedure of the gamma-radiate cells proceeded. The works of the transfer. Heat signatures to track the frog's body temperature with the laceration visible on his red hot body. They were ready.

Back outside the safety glass, the young female was typing the codes on the algorthrims of her system and saw a green light through the seam of the lead doors. "Blolasky, we're ready." she announced.

Thomas Blolasky, cellular biologist, has obtain his doctorate of medical biology at the age of twenty-four. He once joined the Ninjago Special Forces, but due to a severe injury, he was out of commission and found work in the Ninjago City University of Scientology as a lab assistant. As the years passed by, he became fascinated with cellular biology and got his PhD as valedictorian of his class. After two years, he began research with genetics of animal blood cells that contain regeneration cells to reproduce new limbs to enhance the human immune system. Believing to regrow new cells in the body and to cure cancer cells from spreading.

Blolasky typed away on the hard white plastic keyboard by his terminal and looked at his screen to see his screen that they have the all-clear light on. "Betty," he said back, "Let's make history." and slammed the Enter key with his index finger.

The camera view of Roger 9 went static for a millisecond as the radiation entered the claustrophobic chamber which held the frog. At the bottom of the small bag of Nanomed, a vent slowly opened and a hiss could be heard as the bag was slowly deflating. "Nanomeds are entering the chamber." a computer voice announced. The biologists turned their attention to one of the monitors that had an overhead view of the frog and the screen went purple. They watched as the laceration of the frog's back turn white and was slowly closing up with new cells. On the regular view of the frog, they could see the laceration sealing up rapidly as the Nanomeds were taking course until it was sealed with no scar or scar tissue damage and the skin was new; like it never had a laceration. The biologists tensed up as they waited for a catastrophe to happen to Roger 9. Sadly, before Roger 9, the others eight Rogers were unfortunate. But surprisingly, nothing happened.

Blolasky sighed and slumped back in his chair with a smile of victory. "We did it, Betty." He cheered. "We've done it." He walks over to the mini fridge in the lab that held specimen sample and pulled out a bottle of sparkling cider and searched for unused Styrofoam cups while his assistant waited.

Betty Ross, Dr. Thomas Blolasky's assistant, graduated top of her class with a four-point-oh GPA score as salutatorian of Ninjago City High School at fifthteen years old. Taken an interest in cellular biology research under her professor, head of the biology department, in her freshman year, she spent her entire science courses under biology and anatomy to learn more and saw a way to help reproduce cells much more faster under gamma radiation. Although gamma radiation is a highly dangerous level of light wave energy, it was possible under her research paper. A year later, at the age of sixteen, she received a letter from the Ninjago City University of Scientology offering her a full scholarship from her research on gamma radiation and working to help the immune system of the human body. Now at seventeen, she and her supervisor have made it happen.

She watched as her supervisor found two cups and walked back to his seat. Blolasky used his thumb to push the cork off the bottle to hear a pop and poured an equal amount of the non-alcoholic beverage into each cup and handed one to Betty. "Cheers." he said and tapped his cup with hers and drank down the tart liquid. Betty laced her slender fingers around the foam cup and hasn't taken a sip and looked at the machine that helped make history with a worried and wondering look. Her supervisor saw her expression and placed his cup down to refill it. "Something on your mind?" he asked.

"I don't think we're ready just yet, Blolasky." she replied and placed her cup down on the desk. "I think we need to experiment more."

"Betty, Roger 9 survived the test and the Nanomeds helped." Blolasky pointed out. "His funtions are normal and our ways of gamma rays can help patients and the world." He sees her face and knew something else was bothering her. "But it's probably something else though that's on your mind."

"Roger 9 is only a small test that managed to survive the highest frequency of energy waves." she retorted back. "I'm worried for when we test it on a human, we…" she paused. She has been worried about the criticization that may come upon her and her work and has her faith in science, but still worried with her work. "I feel like we're playing a greater deity than this." she finished.

Blolasky placed his cup down and wheeled himself closer to her. "Don't let the critics get to you." he said while placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "Who cares what others think on our research." Being a scientist his entire life, he doesn't care for much. "Our fellow scientists will appreciate our work and so will the world. We can help those that are ill. We're doing it to help people. I'm worried too on what may happen to a human too, but it'll work. We're in on this together."

Betty looked at her supervisor, still worries, and brought a small smile to her lips as he was right. They were a team. She picked up her cup of the tart beverage and held it high. "Cheers then." she smiled and drank it. Blolasky smiled back and wheeld back to his computer to jot down a few notes on his clipboard and stood up to study Roger 9 up close as the radiation in the room was cleared. Betty watched as her partner was behind the Plexiglas and brought her knees up to hug them; worried still.

A frog with a small laceration may have survived, but what about humans? Gamma rays are highly dangerous when being exposed and can cause death instantaneously. But with the Nanomeds, it's a chance of survival without side effects. Betty continued eyeing the frog as it croaked under the glass dome. Their chance of helping the world were little as it was only a small test after the other eight test subjects. But their chances with humans were unknown.

What can it do?

* * *

**So I know it's a short chapter and doesn't involve with the Ninja yet, but I'm getting there. Everything has to have a start off point in the beginning of each story. Don't worry I'll post a chapter soon with the Ninja. Oh and I also have a job now, so maybe sometimes my chapters may be posted late, but I'll try my best to type them up and post them by Friday. And I know what some of you are thinking about this needing to be a crossover, but I don't want it to be a crossover and just want to be a story to involve Ninjago. I hope you understand. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the story and I'll see you again next time. See you all soon. :)**


	2. Odd Invitations

**Hey everyone, like as I promised, here is a chapter now that involves with the Ninja. Anyway now, this time from now on, I shall update on every Friday morning. Hope you enjoy the chapter and can't wait to read the reviews. Enjoy. **

* * *

**Chapter 1: Odd Invitations**

A blissful cool breeze blew through the chilled weather of October. A single red leaf was plucked from a maple tree and danced across the sky and landed gently on the tip of a teenager's nose. The teen groaned as his sleep was disturbed from the dead foilage tickling his nose and pried his eyes open to reveal the dark amber irises to the afternoon sun. He crossed his eyes to see the red leaf and picked it up by the stem and twirled it with his finger and thumb. A smile grew on his lips as a new season was beginning and blew the leaf away and watched it dance around to gently land on wooden floorboards of the deck, but was then crushed underneath someone's socked foot.

"Hey Cole," someone spoke up. "Are you going to stay up there all day? I thought the earth would appreicate the ground more often. Haha!"

The raven-haired teen, Cole, prompt himself up with his elbows to peer down from the roof of the flying vessel, Destiny's Bounty, to see Jay with a smug grin on his face from his joke. The Ninja of Earth rolled his eyes at annoyance and ignored him and laid back down on the slanted roof of the bridge. He and the others were glad to have the Bounty back after taking it back from Garmadon from winning the Ninjaball Run Race and saving Darreth's dojo. Plus it was starting to get crowded in their old small one room and half bath apartment with two extra people on the team. And after painting it back to its original color, it started to feel like home again.

Jay looked at him and sighed. "Whatever." he said while turning on his heels. "We'll be in the living room if you want to hang out with us." and disappeared back into the ship.

_Thank God he's finally gone_. Cole thought to himself and shifted back to get comfortable and felt the shingles scratching his exposed arms from his black tee shirt and found the spot. Sensei Wu has decided to allow the team to take the day off today for two or three reasons. For them to have a break from training Lloyd. For Sensei to reunite with his son after four months of separation. And for them to relax since there hasn't been any attacks of Serpentine or Garmadon plots. But the leader would prefer to be on the lookout, but they could at least let their guard down for once and relax to the chilled weather outside while everyone else socializes inside.

The black ninja slowly closed his amber eyes again as the peace and quiet was back and listened to the music of nature. He could hear the chirps of the many speicies of birds perched in the forest in the distance. The gentle howl of the wind breezing softly and calmly through his black shaggy hair. In the distance from where the Bounty was docked, the earth ninja could hear the sound of car horns and tires screeching as it was rush hour. But he didn't mind it as he was far from the city and could relax to the open. Until a small bell began ringing.

The leader's eyes instantly shot open and quickly sat up to narrow his eyes to the noise. "What now?" he grumbled. He looked around to find the source and rolled his eyes to sigh as it was the same time that always come when they train. But this time it interrupted his sleep. Mail call.

Cole got up from the roof and jumped down to the door of the bridge and climbed down the stairs to reach the deck and jumped off the deck with a small cloud of dust rising near his feet after he landed. The mailman kicked the kickstand of his bike and climbed off with his shoulder bag of mail. Cole stood by the ship with his arms crossed as he was annoyed that the only person, besides Jay, to distub him from napping. When the mailman got to Cole, he pushed his wire-rimmed glasses up his nose and gave Cole a hard stare. "What's your problem?" he asked while open his bag.

"Nothing." The Ninja of Earth quickly responded and held his hand out. "Just give me the usual."

"Hold your horses." the mailman snapped back while shuffling through his bag. "I'm going as fast as I can here and make sure I didn't miss anything. The post office doesn't organize much ya know." He finished shuffling and found everything. "Here we are now. Fan letters, letters from your parents, and a package from Creatures, Beast, and Beyond." and pulled out the letters and boxed package.

Cole took the parcels and looked through them and stopped. "What no bills?" he asked bitterly.

The mailman gave him a hard stare back. "You really need to watch that temper and attitude of yours." he spat back.

The black ninja took his words and unstitched his eyebrows from stictching. "Sorry." he said to apologize. "I was relaxing before you came. Just check through again to make sure you didn't forget anything."

The mailman accepted his apology and adjusted his straw hat to keep the sun out of his eyes and searched through his bag. "Nope. I don't see anything el-wait a minute." he paused. "There is something I didn't see before." and pulled out a stack of letters tied together with silver ribbon and held them out to Cole. The black ninja put the other parcels down and accepted the letters.

Cole raised a bushy brow in curiosity as the letters were different. Most of the letters that he and the others received were from fans, but the letters were stacked in an group. "Thanks." he said as the mailman was leaving. He untied the ribbon that was on the first letter and saw a note was attached to them. _For the Ninja_, it read. Cole removed the note to blink in surprise with the letter of his name: _Cole M. Brookstone_ and the sender, from the left corner, was from the Ninjago City University of Scientology. He was more confused now. Why would a fancy university give him, a ninja, a letter about the university?

He looked at the letter below his and blinked in surprise again as it was the same university and the receiver was: _Kai J. Smith._ He was more confused now. Why would the same people send him and Kai a letter from their university when he sees Kai dumb as a sack of potatoes when he doesn't listen to his plans? He continued to flip through the mail as each letter had the same university with the names of his team. _Jay P. Walker, Zane L. Julien, Nya N. Smith, Lucas J. Wu. Laurie E. Garmadon. _And even, _Lloyd M. Garmadon. _Cole started to become more confused on the letters and picked the other parcels and headed back to the ship to deliver the mail and odd letters.

When the Ninja of Earth reached the lower levels of the vessel, he walked through the doorway to the living room with the odd letters tucked underneath his left arm with the other parcels of mail in his hands. He could see his brothers, Kai and Jay dressed in their regular clothes on their day off, pounding on the buttons of their controllers of their favorite video game Fist to Face 2. Zane was sitting in the corner in a lotus position to meditate with Sensei Wu. Nya was watching her brother and boyfriend play on their game while reading a romantic book on the couch with Laurie Garmadon. And finally spotted Lucas on a bean bag chair with Lloyd on his lap, socializing with his cousin after four months of separation from a coma. While his other cousin, that they never knew of each other, leaned in to know more about him.

Jay was the blue lightning ninja who tends to never shut up and has to crack a joke from time to time. Kai, the red fire ninja, can become a hothead when his anger is acted up in training, combat, and even video games. Zane, the white ice ninja and android, calm and wise with his sixth sense and Cole finds him his second-in-command if something happened to the leader. Nya, the team's samurai and Kai's younger sister, clever with mechanics and strong in combat with exo-suit. And there's Lloyd, the Green Ninja and master of all elements, but still stubborn to train as he's a kid that gets under everyone's skin. Pulling pranks on everyone to be a jokester with his powers and tricks. And even sabotaging his Violet Berry Soup one time and used Jay as a scapegoat. Cole should start calling him the Ninja of Mischief, but finds him and everyone else as his family.

But then, there's the two prophesized guardians of the Green Ninja. Lucas Wu, the grey ninja and master of water. And Laurie Garmadon, the orange ninja and master of wind. Lucas is Sensei Wu's son and Lloyd's cousin whose been on a lead of absence for over four months due to a pirate attack in Ninjago City when the ship's mast fell on him to render him into a coma. But before it happened, he used to be Garmadon's apprentice twice before what they called the Summer Solstice Battle and died in a sacrifice. But he faced terrible times when he followed his evil uncle. He was forced to follow every order from his uncle, forced to kidnap his cousin, and was whipped for betrayal and is left with a dozen long whip scars on his back and one extra one from where the poison blade killed him. So in total, it's thirteen scars or a baker's dozen. But he rose back from the dead as he proved himself worthy to become Lloyd's guardian for his bravery on destroying the Twilight Mirror and sacrifice.

And then there was Laurie. She's Lloyd's older sister, daughter of Garmadon, and Lucas' unknown cousin as he never knew of her as she did on him too. When Laurie first joined the team, she was on a mission to steal her brother from them as Garmadon corrupted her mind to thinking he was kidnapped from the ninja. But after a race against time to save her brother from being turned into a Serpentine, she has proved herself as the Ninja of Wind. But four months after the event, before Lucas woke up, she has been targeted by her father using the Mega-weapon to create a portal to the Underworld to bring a Serpentine goddess back to the world. Her name was Belinda. And the Serpentine favored and feared her the most. The entity haunted Laurie and nearly tried to kill her and Kai until she sacrificed her memories with Kai as they were in love with each other before to save herself from death. And after the entity left her alone, she tried the hardest to remember being with Kai while she had a new threat on her back. A twelve year old trained assassin named Rhea. The mute girl had a past and a dark secret. But after a fight on the Ninjago City Tower's roof, the girl sacrificed her life to protect Lloyd and Laurie from a samurai warrior made from unbreakable stone and a dark shadow entity.

But what makes those two special was that the guardains still have control over their elemental powers. Each ninja used to have a golden weapon of their element before Garmadon stole them to create the Mega Weapon. But after the weapons were taken, the two prophesized guardians are able to control their elemental powers to protect the Green Ninja. But the other four ninjas have no ability to control their powers unlike Lucas and Laurie. They all know that their objective is to protect Lloyd, but Cole and the others were slightly jealous that they still have their powers. Maybe Kai is the most jealous though.

Cole brought himself back and brought the mail to the center and placed them on the coffee table. But kept the odd letters hidden. "Mail call." he said and took a step back before a stampeed happened.

Kai and Jay paused their game and quickly lunged themselves at the mail. Envelopes of mail fluttered in the air and slowly flew down. The fire and lightning ninja were sprawled on the floor as the enclosed letters fell on top of them like snow. Lucas sighed. "Really guys," he sighed. "You have to be childish, don't you? It's just mail."

Kai pulled Jay up and picked the parcels. After passing them around, he sat back down and leaned against the wall. "Jealous that you don't get mail?" he smirked.

Lucas smirked back. He cupped his hands behind his head and leaned back on the bean bag chair with Lloyd following like him as he leaned his head against his chest with a smirk too. "Jealous that you don't have elemental powers?" he smirked back. Kai's smug grin disappeared and stitched his eyebrows and turned away to look at his mail. Cole smirked as the two relatives chuckled. Kai was definitely jealous. The black haired teen caught Lucas glancing at him but his hazel grey eyes were averted downwards. He knew he was staring at the mail in his arm. "Hey Cole, what are those?" he asked.

Cole untied the ribbon and looked at everyone. Eyes were trained on him and he started to feel nervous to say. Why would he feel that way? He was the Ninja of Earth. Strong as a rock. Nothing can push him. He drew in a deep breath and exhaled. "They're letters from the univeristy outside the city." he replied and tossed them in the wired waistbasket. "But I don't think we need anything from them since we're ninjas." and plopped himself down on the lounge chair.

Zane opened his eyes to stand up and stretch his arms and walked over to the basket and fished the letters out. "Perhaps there's another reason why they sent them to us." he persisted. He grabbed Cole's letter and handed it to him. The ice ninja then went to Kai and handed him his and received a confused look. He went to Jay, his own letter, Nya, Lucas, Laurie and looked at the last letter confused and handed it to Lloyd. The young blonde's eyes were wide in confusion and looked at the letter and his cousin weird. Zane looked at everyone as they kept looking at the letters weird and sat back at his spot.

"Well let's see what they could be." Lucas said and drew out a sai and used it as a letter opener for his and Lloyd's letter. Kai ripped his open and pulled out the folded paper along with a golden color ticket. The water ninja insisted to open Laurie and Nya's letter while Zane used a shuriken to his, Jay, Cole's. The water ninja pulled his letter out and read it in silent with an raise scarred eyebrow.

"What does it say, Lucas?" Lloyd asked.

Lucas read the letter over again couldn't think of a way to reply until Zane spoke up. "To the Ninja of Ninjago." he began. "You and your friends are invited as honorary guest to the latest discovery in cellular biology. On the fifthth of October, the university of scientology will be hosting a masquerade ball in honor of the latest discovery. Each envelope holds your ticket of entry for the ball and we would appericate it if you could attend. Sincerely Dr. Thomas Blolasky and Elizabeth Ross." The Ninja of Ice finished rereading the letter and then looked at his ticket. A thick gold colored ticket with bold black letters of admission, time, date, and location. He slid the sleeve of his white long-sleeved shirt up to his elbow and opened the panel of his left forearm. He pressed a few keys on the keypad to raise a light blonde eyebrow. "October fifthth." he wondered. "That's less than two weeks." He closed his panel and slid his sleeve back down to his wrist. "Do you think we should attend?" he asked.

Cole looked at his letter and ticket and rolled his eyes. He didn't want to attend for sure. He didn't want to relive his time at Marty Oppinhiemer Performing Arts and had to dance like his father. Not his dreams. He didn't care for the ball that was honorary him and the team for the Great Devourer defeat and didn't dance much and dealt with Laurie facing against the small assassin till her death. But for this one, they would expect him to dance. So his reply would be 'No'.

The black ninja looked away rfom his letter to see the others looking at theirs and looked at Lloyd. The boy's blonde eyebrows were furrowed in confusion as he kept looking at his letter. "What's a masquerade ball?" he asked. "It's not like that one you tried to make me go last time, is it?" and crossed his arms like he was about to pout.

The samurai chuckled while folding the corner of her page to mark her book. "Not exactly, Pint-size." she replied. Nya took the envelope that held her letter and tore it to become one sheet of paper. She slid her fingers as she slowly folded and creased the edges as she was making origomi. It almost looked like a bird's beak. Once she finished the top half, she grabbed Lucas' sai and sliced two eye slits. "You see," she began. "A masquerade ball is a dance you attend to like the one we went to before, but you would have to wear a mask." Nya demostrated by placing her makeshift mask over the top half of her face; eyes and nose. "Like this." She removed it to move her bangs aways from her light brown eyes. "You wear the mask as you dance and at the end, you remove your partner's to see their identity." She looked at Jay and both blushed to a light red.

Kai rollled his eyes to their love and didn't care as he trusted Jay with her. "So how do you know so much about this, Sis?" he asked while having his hands behind his head.

Nya looked away from Jay to stare at her fiery brother with a smirk. She simply picked her book up to show the illustrated cover. It showed a man in a black suit with black scaly wings behind his back with a black mask over his eyes while a woman was in a white dress with white scaly wings and a white mask over her eyes. How convient to be a masquerade ball. "I read, Kai." she stated. The samurai placed her book back down on the arm of the couch and looked at her invitation. She had an idea. "You know, I think we should go. It sounds like fun."

Cole perked his head up to the idea. She had to be joking, right? Why was she blurting it out? Jay looked at his letter to nod in agreement. "Yeah I think we should." he agreed. "It does sound like fun."

Cole couldn't believe what the others were doing. They were starting to agree on going to the ball. Kai soon joined in on the three while Laurie was unsure and Lucas and Lloyd couldn't decide. The last time Laurie attended to a ball, she nearly got killed during the night after she left and Lloyd was kidnapped while Lucas wasn't around. The earth ninja looked at the ice ninja to see a smile on his face. "I think I'll agree with you three." he said. "I think it shall be fun and fascinating." He turned to Cole. "What about you, Cole?"

Cole looked at them as all eyes were trained on him. He didn't know what to say on his response. Of course he doesn't want to attend as he doesn't like dancing. He was proud to perform the Triple Tiger Sashay; hardest dance move in the world. But he doesn't want to attend. "I think we shouldn't go." he replied.

All were quiet to his response. What did he just say? No!? "Why not, Cole?" Jay asked. "We went to the other one a couple weeks ago and you didn't care for that one."

"Only because we were being honored for the Devourer defeat." Cole rebutted. The Ninja remembered the ball at the community center was for the Great Devourer that was unleashed by Pythor and managed to defeat it with the golden weapons from Garmadon on its weak spot. But since the university of scientology wanted him and the team to attend, he didn't want to. "I think this wouldn't sould like a good idea. We have a reputation as ninjas. Not dancers."

Lucas rolled his eyes. "Reputation? Really?" he questioned him. The grey ninja shifted on the bean bag chair to get comfortable. "Before I joined the team, you guys were doing lots of things that ninjas wouldn't do. Like tying Lloyd to that sign or the Blade Cup competition. You all that reputation?" He looked at his invitation and formed a small smile. "I think we should go. I missed a lot when I was gone and want to be out there. And if I go, Shrimp has to go too." Lucas heard a small groan from the small ninja. "Your sister told me what happened the last time and you're going for your protection."

Lucas and Lloyd looked at Laurie as she nodded. "Yeah the last time we left you home alone, you got kidnapped." she stated. "I'll come along to protect you." That's seven votes of approval now.

Cole now couldn't believe it as everyone wanted to attend. He looked at the elemental ninjas and samurai as their eyes were trained on him. Almost as if Jay would be saying, _It's seven to one, Rockhead. What's it going to be?,_ Cole looked at all of them and sighed in defeat. "Fine." he agreed. "I'll go."

Kai and Jay high-fived each other as they all convinced him. Zane only smiled on his decision and sat back down to meditate. Laurie didn't look sure on going, but still agree to protect Lloyd. Nya, however, didn't smile and silently gasped. "I just realized that we don't have masks." she gasped. "Those that got invited too may have gotten the good masks. And if the ball is in less than two weeks, we won't have any masks to wear."

Cole smirked inside. That means they can't attend. No mask, no entry. Oh too bad, so sad. The sound of snapping fingers brought him back to life and turned to Lucas. He must have an idea. "I have an idea." the Ninja of Water said. "Lloyd, grab your sketch book and jacket. I need you to come with me."

Lloyd got off his cousin's lap. "Why?" he asked.

Lucas stood up and stretched his muscles and straightened his jeans and grey tee shirt. "Because I am gonna do everyone a favor." he replied. "You and I are gonna head for the crafts store to grab supplies. I'm gonna make our masks. And I need your help to help on ideas and supplies. Let's go." The grey and green soon then left the living room and to head for the store.

"So while they do that, what shall we do?' Zane asked.

Cole listened to their rambles of plans and groaned inside as he was so close to not attending at all. He watched Nya drag Laurie out of her seat to go dress shopping as her other dress was runined from the stone warrior they seen when Rhea was alive. But now there hasn't been any after the fight on Ninjago City Tower and peace has been quiet for some time now. No Garmadon or Serpentine causing trouble. Cole had enough of their plans and left as they began to play video games again. The only thing that crossed his mind as he walked down the hall was simple.

This was going to be the longest week and a half.

* * *

**So what did you think? I enjoy doing this story now and have ideas on what to do for it. So I hoped you enjoyed it, can't wait to see the reviews, and see you all next week. Have a wonderful weekend. :)**


	3. Preparing

**Hey everyone , happy Friday, it is time for a new update. So enjoy. **

* * *

**Chapter 2: Preparing**

Ninety-seven. Ninety-eight. Ninety-nine. One hundred. Cole rested the bench press bar on the resting perches to finish his workout. He slowly sat up after laying on his back for the reps he done for his routine. Sweat dripped down from his brow as he finished and was exhausted. But he didn't feel tired though to help him sleep, just didn't matter to him. He worked out every day to stay fit and strong for the team. Basically he's the strongest one of them all.

The black ninja stretched his warm muscles and began to put the heaviest weights he had on the bar away to the rack of the other weights. After he placed the last weight away, he grabbed the towel he brought along and pressed it against his face. Oh man it felt great. The sweat forming on his face to tell him his accomplishment. His muscles burning to his workout on his arms, shoulders, pectoral muscles, and even abs. The satisfaction of his workout congratulating him. Feel the burn.

Cole looked up after cleaning the sweat off his face and looked around the training room of the Bounty's lower levels. He was alone. Usually the training room would be full with everyone to work out and train. He would see Kai doing push-ups with Lloyd on his back. Jay running max speed on the treadmill. Zane meditating. Lucas on the wooden pegs to help Laurie or Lloyd learn her powers and balance or training with Lloyd. And Nya would be helping Laurie into a workout routine while she stayed near the medical table with supplies in case one injured themselves. But where was everyone though?

Oh wait that's right. Everyone was getting ready for the upcoming ball.

All through the week, everyone has been in a fessaco about the masquerade ball. There was only three days left. What's everyone so excited about? 'It's just a ball.' Cole would always say. But Nya always put it, 'It'll be fun where everyone can have fun and see this discovery.' So Cole couldn't counter the argument on it when everyone was thrilled. Can't say for Laurie though as she said she felt ridiculous in her new dress or Lloyd doesn't want to go. But everyone was going because they were invited as honorary guest. So Lloyd doesn't have much of a choice. Cole brought himself back and grabbed his tee shirt and left the training room after flickering the lights off.

The earth ninja traversed up the stairs to another level of the Bounty to see it was quiet in the halls. Where was everyone? It was quiet as a ghost town maybe. He heard the familiar tap of a staff and turned his head to see Sensei Wu walking down the hall to his left. He couldn't help but smile a little since he wasn't alone after all. But he felt a bit guilty and disappointed that the elder wasn't invited, but Sensei didn't mind that he received an invitation. "Hello Cole," Sensei greeted him warmly. "Something troubling you?"

Cole looked up at his teacher and shook his head. "Not really, Sensei." he shrugged. He looked around the halls and heard nothing, but the wood groaning as the ship was settling on the land. He looked out the port window to blink in surprise on how it got dark outside. He must've workout much longer than he thought. He felt something tap his head and shook his head to wake up and looked at Sensei's grey eyes as they were focused on him. "Oh... Uh... I was wondering where the others were. Have you seen them?" he asked.

Sensei nodded. That relived Cole. "The others are still on the ship if that's what you're referring a little." he chuckled lightly. Cole smiled back along the joke. "The girls are in their room. I seen Kai and Zane on the deck training. My son is in the living room working on the masks for all of you and I haven't seen Jay or my nephew around. But I'm sure they're still on the ship."

"Thank you, Sensei." Cole said and watched the elder walk up the stairs to the deck. The Ninja of Earth followed him up the stairs and felt a cool gust of Fall air hit his body and felt a chill. He looked around and found Kai punching on the sand bag in just his white undershirt and red pants with white tape around his hands while Zane held the bag for him. When the ice ninja noticed the leader, he waved to greet him. Cole smiled and waved back and walked back down the steps as Kai and Zane continued with training. He's not being anti-social or anything. Just not in the mood to talk. The leader kept walking down the halls to the shared bunk room he shared with the others to relax for the night, but slowed down as he heard shouts erupting near him.

"Come on, Lucas!" Jay's voice whined. "Let me see mine and Nya's mask."

What in the world is going on now? Cole peered through the doorway to see Lucas guarding the coffee table while Jay was in front of him. "And I told you Jay, that they're a secret." the water ninja retorted. "If I show you yours and Nya's, then I have to show everyone theirs and it wouldn't be a surprise."

Cole rolled his eyes as it was a pathetic argument over the masquerade masks. Almost every night at dinner, Lucas would announce that he finished another mask that he worked on. The earth ninja could see through Lucas' lean form to see the table behind him. He could see the large sketch book that he gave to Lloyd on his birthday but being used as the designs for the masks. On the table as well had various crafts and rhinestones with two plain white eye masks that cover the upper half of a person's face; still needed to be crafted. Whose though? Also the table held a small square metal box with a lock on it and a handle on top of the lid; a money box. Cole suspected it was being occupied as the safe for the finished masks. He then brought himself back and stepped in to know the commotion. "What's going on here?" he asked.

The lightning and water ninja stopped arguing and turned their heads to the leader. Lucas crossed his arms to begin his debate. "Zippy here," he began while gesturing him with his thumb. "Keeps bugging me to see his and Nya's mask and I keep telling him no. But he doesn't listen."

"I'm curious to know what my mask looks like." Jay argued. "I won't tell anyone, just want to see what it looks like. Even try it on."

Lucas looked at him to roll his eyes. "Want to see it then." he said and held his right hand out. Mist began to spray out and form around Jay's face to create a mirage." Take a look then."

Jay looked around to find something for his reflection and went to the TV that was turned off. He looked up to see the mask and turned to Lucas to glare at him. "HEY!" he shouted. Cole and Lucas couldn't help but laugh to the message the water ninja conjured on the misty mask. _I'm a doofus,_ in bold letters.

What? He asked for it.

Lucas caught his breath and whisked his hand to remove the mist away from Jay. "What?" he smirked. "You wanted to see your mask. If you want the real one, you need to fight me for it."

"Oh I will." Jay lunged at Lucas and made contact to him to pin him to the floor. "This is for your joke."

Cole pinched the bridge of his nose as he watched the two wrestle. This was pathetic to see two masks if they were kept a secret. Even from Jay. The earth ninja walked up to them and lifted them by the collars of their tee shirts like they were cats and collided their heads together and dropped them to the floor. He heard them cry out in pain and saw them held their heads. "Knock it off, both of you." he demanded. "This is childish even from you, Jay. Now leave the Green Ninja's cousin alone so he can finish the rest."

Jay stood up and slowly headed for the door to the hall and stopped. He turned around with a smirk creasing on his lips. "Yes Mama Cole. Ha ha ha!" he laughed and left.

Cole rolled his eyes at Jay's joke and turned to Lucas. The grey ninja pulled himself up and walked to the coffee table. "Thanks man." he said and sat down on the floor in front of the table and masks. He picked up the sketch book and turned to a fresh page and grabbed the pencil to light sketch the outlines of the new mask. He placed the graphite lead on the corner and labeled the wearer's name. _Cole._ The water ninja stopped and as he was about to start and looked over his shoulder to look at the earth ninja. "Do you mind?" he smirked.

Cole smirked back while chuckling. "Whatever." he said and left the living room. The leader kept heading down the halls of the ship to peer down the halls of the shared bedrooms. He could see the samurai and orange ninja out of their room and heard Laurie groan while wobbling to keep her balance. He looked down to see her feet in a pair of heels with the laces tied around her ankles. She didn't have her dress on, but her black pajama pants and tank top, but still kept hugging the wall like she was clubbed on the head to maintain her balance. Cole could tell she wasn't used to them and hated them. But laughed still. "New shoes?" he asked cocky.

Nya looked up to see the black ninja and giggled. "You could say that." she said. "I'm trying to break her into them so Laurie here will look formal. Flat slippers aren't gonna cut it."

"Formal!?" Laurie exclaimed. She carefully reached the door to her and Nya's room. "I just thought putting on the dress was only formal. Not adding these heels." She carefully reached down and unlaced the straps around her ankles and stepped out of them. "Oh that feels much better." she breathed, flexing her feet on the wooden floor. "Glad I won't deal with them anymore."

"Ah we're not done yet." Nya said while grabbing Laurie's heels and her hand and used her elbow to open the door. "We're gonna put your dress on and see what I can do for your hair and nails. Let's go." She walked in as Laurie groaned and the wind ninja looked at Cole mouthing words before she disappeared. I think he deciphered it as _'Save me, Cole. Go get Kai!'_ The leader chuckled to her exaggeration and walked down the hall further to reach the bunk room he shared with the others and pushed the door open to enter and closed it behind him.

The black-haired teen leaned against the door to sigh. Everyone has been on a fanatic for the upcoming ball and secret scientific discovery. Everyone, but him. He doesn't want to attend, but thanks to an out ruled vote, he has to attend for the team. That includes everyone. But wished Sensei could attend, but the elder doesn't mind about the invitation. But still Cole wished. He sighed yet again to wish to get it over with and grabbed his bath towel and headed for the bathroom to shower.

After he wretched the shower faucet on, the earth ninja stripped off his shorts that he worked out in and his boxers and stepped in. He felt a cool rush of cold water burn into his skin and quickly turned it to the warm and sighed as it felt better. The water felt refreshing to his still warm muscles and grabbed the body wash that was his as the other five elemental ninjas had their own and drilled the mint-scented soap into his skin. The soap too felt refreshing as it cleansed his body to remove the sweat and oil from his body and lathered his shaggy hair with the large bottle of shampoo to rinse the sweat out and then rinsed the soap off. Cole felt refreshed and cleaned and turned the water off to step out to dry off and wrap the towel around his waist, grabbed his discarded clothing, and left the bathroom.

The Ninja of Earth threw his clothes in the hamper and walked over to his dresser and pulled out a new pair of boxer, sweatpants, and a tee shirt. After he pulled the fresh clothes on, the leader began to hear faint sounds of orchestra music in the room. Confused, Cole kept turning his head to the music and looked at the walk-in closet of their room. Curious, he slowly crept up to it and heard the music grow louder and looked at the floor to see light pour out of the seam. Someone was in there. But who?

Cole quietly turned the knob and carefully pushed the door open to hear the music grow even louder. Still confused, he peeked in to see something move past him and noticed it was Lloyd. What was he doing? Cole watched the small ninja's movements and noticed they were slow dance moves. The way his hands were held like someone was dancing with him and was a bit clumsy as his head was down as his emerald green eyes were focused on the mat beneath his feet. Cole looked down to see it was a white mat on the floor with black numbered footsteps in different positions. He recognized it was the dance mat that most people use to practice on when they want to learn how to dance; a cheaper way. But what was Lloyd doing with it? "Lloyd?" he asked and walked in.

Lloyd quickly turned to face Cole, but his socked feet made him lose his footing and slipped on the slick plastic mat and fell. "Whoa!" he cried as he fell to his chest. He groaned a little while sitting up to hold his chest and head. "Ouch." he groaned softly. "I'm okay, Cole." and stood up.

Cole chuckled. "Whatcha doing, little Romeo?" he asked.

The green ninja stood up and walked over to the radio and pressed 'stop' to turn the music off. He sighed. "I'm trying to learn how to dance." he replied quietly. Cole snorted and couldn't hold his laughter. Lloyd turned around to shoot glares at him. "Hey I don't have a choice." he argued. "Nya told me I had to learn how to dance formal for this dumb ball and gave me this to learn how to do."

"So how's going then?" he asked curiously and jokingly.

Lloyd cupped the back of his head after fixing his unkempt blonde hair to sigh. "Not too well." he replied. He walked to the mat and placed his foot on number one and the other on two. "I keep following the steps, but when I get to seven and eight, I keep falling flat on my face. This is so stupid though."

Cole looked at the youngest member of the team to understand and agree. When Cole was in the institution of dancing by his father, he had to follow those lessons that the class had to demonstrate every day. Formal. Chorography. And dancing in a quartet. The earth ninja could feel the embarrassment happening to the boy in the future. "So why are you doing it in the closet then?" he asked.

"I do it to hide from the others so they don't laugh at me." Lloyd stated plainly. "Besides I thought everyone was outside."

"Didn't you hear me in the shower?" Cole retorted lightly. Lloyd shook his head. Figures. The violin music must've drowned out the sound of rushing water from the closet. But Cole watched Lloyd dance like a fool as he missed his footing and slipped and had an idea. He peeked out the door to see the room was empty and turned to Lloyd. "You know what?" he said. "I'll teach you to dance to spare the humiliation." Lloyd snorted and couldn't hold his laughter. Cole furrowed his bushy brows together. "What?"

"N-N-Nothing!" he laughed. He stopped to breath. "But Cole Brookstone, the leader of the team, will teach me how to dance. Really? Oh wait he was learning how to before he became a ninja. This is too rich!" He began laughing again and fell to the floor while holding his sides. "C-Cole, teaching me how to!"

Cole kept furrowing his brows as the green ninja was mocking him. He smirked as an idea came. "Fine then. Don't learn how to dance." he smirked. "And humiliate yourself in front of everyone to be laughed at by the others. And when everyone sees that the Green Ninja can't dance, everyone will not look up to their hero in the Final Battle. That might just destroy your ego."

Lloyd stopped laughing immediately and prompt himself up with his elbows. "That wouldn't happen would it?" he asked a bit concerned.

Cole leaned against the door while crossing his arms over his chest. "Oh what do you think, Squirt?" he asked.

Lloyd didn't laugh anymore and just shut his mouth. "Please teach me then, Cole." he begged. "I don't want to be laughed at by the others."

Cole looked into his emerald green eyes to still smirk. Of course he was going to teach him. Save him from the humiliation at least. "Alright you got yourself a teacher." he said.

Cole used his foot to kick the mat away and stood in front of the small ninja. Lloyd was confused as Cole directed his left hand on top his right shoulder and felt awkward as Cole's right hand was on his lower back. It's not what Cole thought, it was a way to help him with two people instead of one; like in the days before he was a ninja. Cole then grabbed Lloyd's right hand with his left and held them out. "I'll lead." Cole insisted.

The earth ninja took a step to the left while Lloyd followed by taking a right step. Cole then stepped forward while Lloyd stepped back. The boy began to feel like he was actually dancing better than the mat Nya had him on. When the two made a complete box. The Ninja of Earth removed his hand from Lloyd's back to whisk him to the left in a twirl and was gently pulled back in the same position. "Now the key is to not step on her feet." he instructed him. "Your turn to lead..."

* * *

**Aww isn't that sweet of Cole. To help Lloyd how to dance and not be humiliated at the ball. So I hoped you enjoyed this chapter, I can't wait to see the reviews, hope you all have a wonderful weekend. See you all next week. :)**


	4. The Elemental Masks

**Hey everyone, happy Friday. It is time for another update. Ninjagosbiggestfan, You finally get to see what the masks look like. In fact, everyone does! So enjoy. **

* * *

**Chapter 3: The Elemental Masks**

The day has come for the Ninja. The masquerade ball and science ceremony of the latest unknown discovery. Cole felt the gentle hum running in his hands as he gripped to the joysticks of the Ultra Sonic Raider, or Tank for short, as he drove Zane, Jay, and Kai to the university while Lucas drove Laurie, Nya, and Lloyd in the Rain that they created months ago since they were short on transportation. The earth ninja looked at himself to be sharply dressed in a black dress shirt, jacket, and pants with a black bow tie around his neck. He looked like his father's quartet. He felt ridiculous dressed all formal, but he's not the only one that feels that way. About half of the team feels the same as him.

Cole looked back up to stay focused on driving to see he was outside of Ninjago City and the other's heads as he was in the driver's compartment and looked at the monitor to see the speedometer and the Rain behind him. With the headlights above and below the driver and passenger's windshield, it looked like eight eyes were glowing. The body itself was rigid and was shaped closely to a raindrop. Two terrain tires in the front with the nose pointed in the center while the tires were connected to the side of the outer axis's while protected by armor plates; almost close to like pinchers of an Underworld spider. The body was dark grey with four large tires in the back, two for each side. The team decided to use the Tornado of Creation to create Lucas' old Spinjitzu vehicle after his bike changed to an all-terrain vehicle and can seat four people than two before. Cole had to admit though that it turned out well in the blueprints Jay and Nya worked on to help.

"Turn right ahead." the Tank's navigation announced. Cole brought himself back to see the navigation system was imaging an arrow in a ninety degree angle and worked with the joysticks to steer to the right with the Rain following them. As the Ninja drove further down the road, Cole began to see luscious green fields of grass and drove past an open entrance that said, _Ninjago City University_, in stone writing. This was the place.

The leader reduced his speed as they were closing in on the campus grounds and looked at the buildings that looked like old buildings from the past and refinished for when the university was opened. Ivy plants grew on the brick walls of the different buildings, classes, or libraries. Cole could feel like he travelled back in time. But where was the building they were using for the ball and ceremony?

The Ninja of Earth looked past the Tank's tread belts and tree line to see a two story brick building surrounded with shrubs and deciduous trees in front of the building like an island. And in front of the building that almost looked like a chapel had a red carpet and was flooded with people in masks. Bingo. This was the place.

The black ninja decelerated his speed to stop in front of the building and flipped a few switches and turned the engine off to hear it whine down. He flipped another switch and heard a hissing sound as the hatches were opening and climbed out with the others. "Finally we made it." Jay whined while stretching his arms and grabbed his suit jacket and threw it over his blue button up shirt. "I was about to pass out from boredom." Kai looked at him and smacked him upside the head for being a smart aleck.

Cole chuckled as he watched Kai become uncomfortable with the red neck tie around his neck and kept loosening it to become at least comfortable. Zane didn't complain about his silvery long-sleeved polo and striped vest and white pants as he observed the campus grounds. The sound of the roaring engine behind them all turn around to see the Rain slowing down and humming as Lucas was killing the engine and the hatch was sliding open while the four seats were rising for the riders to climb out. The black ninja watched the grey ninja climb out first to see him dressed sharply in a black button up shirt and silvery grey vest and black jacket. Next Laurie climbed out with Kai's help to see her in a simple orange that wasn't puffy than the last one of hers. Nya came out next with Jay's help to escort her to the ground and see her in her red dress. There was one left and Lloyd hasn't climbed out of the vehicle. "Come on, Lloyd." Lucas called out to his cousin. "It's time."

"No way." Lloyd's voice complained in the vehicle. "I feel stupid in this and don't want the others laughing at me. Can't I stay in the Rain and listen to the radio?"

"Get out here now or I'm coming after you." the water ninja lightly threatened. "Your choice. No one is gonna laugh at you." He turned to the others. "Right guys?" The guys stuttered to reply and nodded as Lucas gave them a hard stare. "See? Your sister, Nya, and I have seen you already. Just show the others."

There was silence. "Fine." Lloyd sighed and lifted his head to show everyone the blonde hair and slowly climbed out. Everyone gave out silent gasps to smile as the green ninja was all dressed up. The young ninja wore a black button up shirt with a golden vest and black jacket and pants with an emerald green bow tie around his neck like Cole's. Everyone kept smiling to see how well he looked while he crossed his arms over his chest as he hopped down to lightly glare at them. "I still feel stupid in this." he stated.

"Oh you feel stupid, I have to wear a tie." Kai pointed out while pointing at his tie. "This thing is like being choked by a Constrictai and I feel stupid in it. Consider yourself lucky." Lloyd thought it over and stifled a small laugh.

"So are we ready to attend?" Zane asked.

"Hang on, what about our masks?" Jay asked. "We'll stick out like sore thumbs if we don't have them." Cole rolled his eyes to his exaggeration as it was dumb idea from the start. The Ninja of Lightning turned to face Lucas to give him a small hard stare. "Lucas, you packed them, right?" he asked.

The grey ninja rolled his hazel grey eyes in annoyance to his ninja brother. "Cool your jets, Jay." he sighed. "I have them in the Rain. Just let me grab them." The water ninja hopped onto the vehicle and reached down into the compartment to pull out the small metal box. He hopped back to the pavement and placed the box in the center of the surrounding group. "Now I'm gonna show you your masks one at a time to show you the work I put into these. Got it?" Everyone nodded that they understood. Lucas smiled. "Alright. Let's start with Kai. You'll find this one like you're...on fire." and winked at Kai.

The fire ninja watched as Lucas flipped the locks with his thumbs and opened the lid to reveal nine variety hand-crafted masks. He then watched the water ninja reach in for the first mask to pull out a red mask that covered the upper half of his face with small flickers sprouting from the top. Embedded with rhinestones of hot colors of red, orange, yellow, and white. And at the ends were dark red ribbons to be used to tie around the wearer's head. Kai looked at his mask, which was now in his hands, and placed it over his eyes and tied it behind his spiky hair. The Ninja watched him open his eyes to reveal the chocolate brown irises to show contrast of the hot colors and watched him move his head. They gasped in amazement to each movement he turned his head to look around and saw flames flicker off. The sunset light reflected off the rhinestones to have mirages of flames appear. Almost like he was on fire.

"Whoa that's so cool!" Jay exclaimed. "What's mine like?" The blue ninja watched Lucas reach back into the case and pulled out the next mask and handed it to him. Jay looked at the blue eye mask with blue and white rhinestones over the upper half of his face with a jagged lightning bold with white rhinestones striking down under his right eye with a navy blue ribbon to tie around his head. Excited, Jay placed the mask over his eyes and tied the ribbon tight behind his head to show everyone the craftsmanship Lucas put into the mask. In his movement, it looked like lightning bolts scattered across his face from the light. "This is so cool!" he shouted like a little kid. "Nice work, Lucas!"

Lucas smiled. "Thanks Jay." he said. "I put so much work into them to represent our elements." He then handed Zane his mask to show a white mask and ribbon ties with white rhinestones designed into small snowflakes cascading down face when he tied it around his head and moved around. The water ninja then handed Nya her mask that looked similar to Kai's, but had feathers in a fan with dark red ribbons to represent a phoenix as she tied it on. Next he handed Laurie her mask, similar to Nya's but with orange rhinestones and ribbon ties and moved in waves like wind would do to wheat. "Now my mask." Lucas announced and pulled out his mask. A grey eye mask with grey rhinestones and silvery grey ribbons to hold his mask to his face; almost like raining over his face. The grey ninja then turned to Cole as he hasn't received his mask yet. "For you Cole," he said. "Your mask took me awhile to think of your element and suddenly came to me and I didn't have to put mud or rocks on it. Something else that your element creates."

Cole watched as Lucas pulled his mask out and handed it to him; flipped over. The earth ninja flipped it over to blink in surprise to see what he meant that his element created. Diamonds. The strongest element on earth. No doubt though they were real as diamonds were expensive and must be clear rhinestones. A black eye mask with clear rhinestones to look like diamonds covering the upper half of his face with a black ribbon to be tied around his head. The Ninja of Earth looked at his ninja brother to see him smile. "Th-thanks man." he said quietly and slowly brought it to his face and tied the black ribbon tightly. He looked at the others to give them a small smile. "Well... How do I look?" he asked.

Jay chuckled. "Strong as a rock." he said. "Not to mention heavy as one too." and everyone laughed along the joke.

Lloyd walked up to the case to retrieve his mask as he didn't receive his yet and looked in to be confused as it was empty. Where was his mask? He should have one too that Lucas created too and it wasn't in there. Did his cousin even pack it? "Uh Lucas, where's my mask?" he asked.

Lucas looked at him to still smile. "I saved the best for last, Shrimp." he said. The water ninja looked at Cole as he was the closest to the Tank as he leaned against it. "Cole, you're closest to the Tank, inside the driver's compartment is Lloyd's mask. Can you get it?"

The earth ninja nodded and climbed up to the driver's compartment. He looked around to find the green ninja's mask and couldn't find it anywhere. He then figured it was in the driver's glove compartment to push a button and a hatch by his left hand slid open. He reached in to feel something thin and textured with his fingers and drew out the mask. His mouth was agape in amazement to the design the water ninja has done for the others. The mask was golden with emerald green ribbon ties and was shaped and designed as a dragon. A golden dragon's face with rhinestones as the scales to cover the upper half of the boy's face to match his blonde hair. Cole had to admit that Lucas has done an amazing work on it. For all of them.

"Hey Cole," Jay's voice rang. "What does it look like?"

Cole brought himself back and climbed out with the mask behind his back. He walked over to Lloyd with a smile. "Close your eyes, Squirt." he said and Lloyd slowly closed his eyes. Once his eyes were closed, Cole did a quick wave over his eyes to see if he was peeking and revealed the mask and placed it over his eyes and tied it behind his head. He waved to Lucas for him to see and the water ninja blew across his hand to have mist spray out and in front of Lloyd to reflect his body like a mirror. "Alright Lloyd, you can open them."

Lloyd slowly opened his eyes to gasp in surprise. His emerald green eyes were the dragon's eyes and he looked like a dragon. "Lucas," he gasped. "This is so cool. I feel like a dragon with it." Lucas chuckled and brushed the mist away and ruffled his blonde hair. "So now what?" he asked.

"So now that we have our masks, we can attend the ceremony." Nya exclaimed. She looked at Kai and Laurie with a devious smirk. "You know Kai, you still have to dance with Laurie after the last ball." She giggled while Jay hooked his arm with hers.

Kai rolled his eyes to groan a little. "Really Nya? he sighed. He hated it when his sister controlled his and Laurie's relationship like that.

Laurie stifled a small smile and looked at her brother. "You look handsome, Lloyd." she complemented while gently patting his back. "I'm sure any girl around your age would like to dance with you." Thinking back about the small assassin that was trained to kill her. Rhea. The mute girl that was controlled by a dark entity named the Overlord and followed her heart to help them instead kill them. But it costed her life to protect them and send the Overlord and the mysterious stone warrior away from Ninjago. But she was never mute; she was believed to think she was and could speak after all. "I even saw a couple of them eyeing you." and winked through her eye mask at him.

The green ninja looked up to smirk at his older sibling. "I can say the same to you, Sis." he smirked and winked. Then turned to Kai. "You know in case Kai messes up."

"Hey!" Kai complained. Everyone laughed to the green ninja's remark. A little laugh before the ceremony. Kai walked up to Laurie and stood beside her. "Shall we attend?" he asked. Laurie smiled and hooked her left arm with his right and slowly shifted in the heels Nya had her in and walked up to the entrance.

Cole watched as Jay and Nya followed after the fire and wind ninja to attend. As fun as they said it'll be, he still thinks it's dumb. The earth ninja watched Zane follow after them and then Lucas handing Lloyd his ticket and tighten his mask and joined in on the ice ninja. He was now alone. Cole watched the other guest attend to the historic building and thought of the idea of joining them and sighed. He can't deny now as everyone else was already in and attending. Unknown of the scientific discovery to the world. Sighing the final time, the Ninja of Earth pushed himself off the Tank from leaning onto it and followed in with his team.

Time to dance.

* * *

**So what did you think of the masks. Creative, right? So now that they have their mask, it's time to dance. What can possibly go wrong? Find out next week. Have a wonderful weekend and see you all next week. :)**


	5. A Ball that has Gone Wrong

**Hey everyone, happy Friday again. It is time for another update with a soundtrack. I think that this one sets the tone and mood perfectly for Cole at the ball. Type up the link, watch?v=GXP5q1hS_KI, and when you see the mark, *. Enjoy. **

* * *

**Chapter 4: A Ball that has Gone Wrong**

The soft strum of violins filled the air. Roses decorated on the round, white sheeted tables to give off a sweet aroma. Guest of the party filed into the large dance room and mingled with one another. So far it's a ball than a party. That's what everyone saw together. But to Cole, he saw it as a waste of time.

After showing the valet their admission ticket, the Ninja were finally in the ball. Cole looked around the large area to think that he travelled back in time. The building was brick-walled to be authentic. The room was low lit by candles on the wall, but three crystal chandeliers helped flood more light to the center of the dark red carpet floor. An actual band was playing gentle violin music and orchestra music. And in the center of the building was a large area filled of hardwood floor to accompany as the dance floor. Cole knew now that he no longer thought about time travelling. He knew he went back in time.

Cole looked away from everything that makes the ball a ball to look at his right to see a stage in front of a large window. He saw that on the stage was a mysterious object covered by a silver sheet behind a podium. No doubt in mind that was the scientific discovery hidden underneath that sheet. But exactly what does it do?

A bell chimed from a clock tower outside and everyone became silent. The Ninja and guest looked over towards the stage to see a man walk up in a black tuxedo with a fox designed mask. _Must be the host, _Cole thought. _I'll call him Foxman._

Foxman tapped the microphone on the podium to hear a high-pitch wail that lasted for a second and cleared his throat. "I would like to thank you all for coming to attend and witness our ball and discovery." he began. The guest and Ninja clapped after him like a thunder cloud. "My name is Dr. Thomas Blolasky and my partner Elizabeth Ross, who is somewhere in the building thank you too for coming." There were a few loose chuckles and claps. The man under the fox mask peered closely to smile. "I see that our honorary guest, the Ninja of Ninjago, have accepted our invitation. He clapped first and soon the guest joined after him to favor the ninja. Cole and the team felt honored. "Now," he continued. "How about we start off this ball with a dance with the Ninja leading."

Cole was a bit stunned to the uproaring cheers. To lead off the ball with a dance already. The others were baffled too, but quickly came over it. But the problem for Cole was that he didn't have a partner. Jay and Kai already had dates. He watched Zane ask a girl in a purple dress and mask that had an iris flower in her black hair. And next to her was a girl around Lloyd's age with black hair too in a pink dress and mask to show her chocolate brown eyes well. Then looked over his shoulder to see Lucas locking arms with a girl in a yellow dress with pink cherry blossoms in her curled black hair and a mask that looked like it was woven together by weeping willow branches to have her green eyes contrasting brightly. For once Cole had to admit that he didn't have a date.

"Care to ask a girl for a dance?" a female voice asked.

Cole turned his head to see who was asking to give out a silent gasp to what he saw. A girl around his age with raven black hair as his fixed in a bun with two decorative hair sticks inserted in the bun while the loose strands were curled and the bangs neatly trimmed. A black strapless dress hugged her slender body with heels shorter than Laurie or Nya's. A black mask with clear rhinestones as Cole's were traced in elegant swirls around her eyes and edge of the mask. And her eyes were a rich color of blue with smoky eye shadow and lips were red as cherries. Cole was stunned as he felt like he was recently shot with an arrow to the throat to swell it shut for him to talk. "Uh..." he stuttered.

The girl giggled to his stuttering moment. "Are you always this shy?" she asked. "From the earth ninja, I thought you would have more guts."

Cole shook his head clear to bring himself back. "Uh..." he stuttered again. He drew a deep breath to collect himself. He felt nervous as he never asked a girl out before. Most of the times he was assigned to a partner that hated his guts because he kept stepping on their feet to receive a kick in the shin. This was the first time for him. Nervously, he bowed with his right hand out. "W-would you like to dance?" he asked.

The raven-haired girl giggled. "You may." she said while curtsying like a lady and took his hand. Cole wrapped his arm around hers and escorted her down to the dance floor with his team behind them. He found himself in the center while the others were surrounding him and his partner in a circle and got into position. "I hope you know how to dance and start off?" she asked in a low whisper. There was a tapping sound and Cole saw the conductor preparing the ocherstra. "Grab my waist. Grab my waist!"

*****"What...Oh..." Cole quickly placed his right hand on her waist and grabbed her hand with his left while she placed her left hand on top of his shoulder and both began moving as the violins began playing. He and his partner made a quick box as the tempo was fast and quickly shifted hands to make another box. Cole knew exactly how to dance to this sympathy as he was forced to participate the dances as always. The earth ninja looked away to see Blolasky joining the group with his partner, a female in a brown dress and owl mask, with an applause after them. Cole placed his hands on his partner's hip to give her a little hop while twirling and continued dancing.

The tempo began to increase smoothly as more and more guest weaved in to dance with the Ninja. Everyone seemed to be sync to the music as they began to dance in a circle. With the Ninja of Earth and partner in the center. Even Lloyd and his partner were keeping up with the dancing group. He kept looking at his partner to see her giggle as he whisked her away in a twirl and gently pulled her back into his hands to dance. The earth ninja began to feel his cheeks warm up as it was the first time he felt like this before. He hoped the others weren't seeing him actually blushing or at least his partner to feel embarrassed.

The dancers continued to waltz in the circle around the Ninja and gave their partners another hop. Cole heard the music slowly down and low and beginning to pick up the tempo to normal tune little by little and then gave out a burst of music. He knew the music was almost over. And to make it special, he looked at the others to nod. To finish the waltz, the Ninja surrounded them and their partners in their Spinjitzu of their elements and stopped as soon as the violins ended. And to Cole's surprise, he was tipping his partner under his arms to blush brighter.

The surrounding crowd applauded loudly to the Ninja for the dance. Cole pulled his partner to her feet and smiled and waved to the crowd as everyone did. The earth ninja looked at his partner to see her blushing a light pink and smiled back. He now knew what he had to do next from when he was forced to attend a masquerade ball. He had to reveal his partner's face. He gently placed his hands on her mask and slowly slid it up to be touching her bangs and smiled to see her face; high cheek bones and small nose and the blue eyes better.

His partner smiled back and slowly pushed his mask up to his forehead. "My my." she said kindly. "I guess the earth ninja does have guts to be a dancer and a ninja." She slowly brought herself closer to Cole's face and pressed her lips against his. Cole was taken by surprise on the affection and slowly lost himself until the warm lips left his. "Thanks for the dance." she said and walked away and disappeared in the crowd.

Cole was left dumbstruck in the center as the guest were walking away to mingle or dance to the soft violin music. He didn't know what just happened, not that she just left him, but what she did before that. She kissed him. He received his first kiss. He never felt this way before. He felt though that he was sucked in a vortex as he felt those red lips pressing against his and couldn't think straight. He's been on dates before he became a ninja, but never got to kiss on the first date. He now understood how Jay and Kai felt. He was love-struck.

The earth ninja felt something jabbing him in the ribs and looked to see Jay elbowing him. And he didn't like the look of that sly grin on his face. "Way to go, man." he whispered while winking. Cole gave him a small glare as he and Nya walked away from the crowd to find a table to sit. Lucas, Zane, and Lloyd lost their dates as they had to be somewhere else. So he wasn't alone now. The black ninja lead the team through the rows of circular tables to find one that wasn't occupied and could seat nine people till they came across one that was in front of the stage with a tag on top and labeled for the Ninja. "Sweet." Jay said. "Front row seats." and took a seat that had his name in front of it with Nya next to him. Soon after, everyone found theirs and sat down.

Once everyone found their seats, some slightly leaned against their chairs, while others were getting handshakes and congratulative thanks from the mayor and other guest. Some for keeping the city safe from the Serpentine, the dance, and even complementing their masks. After the fiasco, the Ninja were relieved. Zane slipped his mask off and rubbed his eyes to relieve them. "I must say that this was an extraordinary night to attend to." he said and placed his mask down.

"I agree, Zane." said Nya as she leaned closer to Jay. "This was a great idea. Now the entire team can go since Lloyd didn't want to go to the last one. He really missed you, Lucas." Lucas chuckled while ruffling Lloyd's hair as they sat next to each other. "So now it's the discovery and more dancing. Am I the only one whose acting childish to this?" she asked and received a few nods and shaken heads. "Well at least it's good to know my answer from half of you." She heard the violins being strummed to smile. "Come on Jay, let's dance some more." and dragged Jay away back to the dance floor.

Cole rolled his eyes while sipping his glass of water that was on the table. Dance, done. Scientific discovery, next. The leader kept turning his head to find the raven-haired girl he danced with and couldn't spot her anywhere. Where was she? Cole found it a bit rude that she left after the first dance, but she looked like she was in a hurry. But where was she though?

Cole cleared his thoughts of her out of his head and looked at Lloyd with a smug grin. "So Lloyd, I happen to noticed that girl you were dancing with." he smirked. "Care to tell us about her?"

"I could say the same to Lucas and Zane." Kai added. "Care to elaborate?"

Lucas rolled his eyes while Lloyd groaned and Zane just looked at them across the table. The ice ninja cleared his throat to speak. "My dance partner's name was Iris Rock." he explained. "And to answer for Lloyd's groan, his partner was her little sister named Korinna. And the reason why they were attending was because their father helped fund this mysterious contraption." gesturing the hidden object underneath the silver sheet. "Mind if I ask who your partner was, Lucas?"

Lucas removed his mask to scratch his nose. "Her name is Dawn Mori." he replied. "She's here because her mother is an archeologist and helped fund this discovery and ball." He turned to Lloyd as he slumped in his chair. "I got to say though but my cousin danced really well for someone who never danced before."

"Only because Nya forced me to." Lloyd complained. "But Cole helped me though."

Everyone looked at Cole as he smirked at them. "What?" he questioned them. "It was so he didn't dance like an idiot."

"Hey!" Lloyd exclaimed while furrowing his brows. And everyone laughed to his outburst.

Everyone listened to the slow music being played while those dancing to the music danced. The music slowed down and stopped and everyone applauded to the performance. Cole took another sip of his water as Jay and Nya waltz back to their table and seats. "Oh I feel like Melody in my book as she loves dancing." she said while removing her phoenix mask, leaning closer to Jay. "Anything we missed?"

"Nope." Cole replied and took another sip of his water. There was a high-pitched whine and the earth ninja began to throw a coughing fit as the liquid went down his windpipe. He pounded his chest while Zane patted his back. He no longer felt his throat burning and felt a bit shaky and waved Zane away. The earth ninja took a deep breath and looked at the team. "I'm fine." he breathed. He looked up to see what Blolasky wanted to announce and blinked in surprise to who it was.

His partner was up on stage with Blolasky.

The raven-haired girl tapped on the microphone as the lights were shined on her while the room grew darker and everyone took their seats. She cleared her throat. "I like to thank you all and the Ninja for attending to our ball and latest discovery." she began the crowd applauded. "For those that do not know who I am, my name is Elizabeth Ross. And my partner and I thank you all for coming. And we all thank you for the funding's to make our discovery become a dream come true." She turned to her partner. "Blolasky?" Her partner nodded and walked to the sheets and grabbed onto and nodded at her. "Behind this lead blanket reflects the radiation of our discovery. And now will be presented. We present to you the Nanomeds." and Blolasky pulled the sheet off to reveal the mysterious contraption while the sheet fell like a silver stream of liquid.

Cole couldn't believe it that his dance partner was one of the scientist who worked on the machine. He gazed at the egg-shaped contraption with a clear inflated bag with wires connected to another device that was rectangular shaped to fit a person inside it, but had a small pedestal in the center. Next to the contraption were a set of computers monitors. And on a small pedestal next to the computers was a frog croaking in a glass dome. The audience and Ninja applauded to the new discovery. But what does it do?

Elizabeth smiled and began addressing to the audience of the device. And to the long speech was on how the device works. Failed attempts with Roger's one through eight when coming in contact to the Nanomeds. What the Nanomeds were and how gamma radiation was gonna help Ninjago in medicine. Cole kept listening to her voice as he couldn't believe that the person he was dancing with was a co-founder on the Nanomeds at a young age and also kissed him. He suddenly began to feel different and kept looking up at the stage and gazed at Elizabeth.

Cole heard a groan from Lloyd. "This is so boring." the boy yawned while slumping in his chair while his eyes kept blinking.

Lucas looked down at his cousin and lightly nudged him in the ribs with his elbow. "Sit up straight and be polite, Lloyd." he whispered. "We all think this boring, but we're guest and have to be polite. If you don't sit up, I'll take your stash of candy away." Lloyd's eyes grew wide and quickly sat up like a polite young man. "Better now." said Lucas and ruffled his hair while his cousin was slowly slumping back down in his chair without him noticing. Cole let out a low chuckle and continued listening.

"And now, ladies and gentlemen," Elizabeth continued. "Blolasky and I shall demonstrate the Nanomeds on our frog again, Roger 9." The audience applauded until they toned down. "Blolasky?" Blolasky nodded and walked over to the monitors to turn them on and typed on the keyboards. Something flashed on the screen in the compartment and he walked over to inspect it. He peeked in and noticed a wire stuck to one of the vents and carefully opened the panel to reveal more wires and saw the broken connection. The lead scientist pulled the one wire out of the vent and twisted the two together. A small spark shocked him to make him yelp out a little and fell back. A small humming began to roar and Blolasky sat up to see the red light buzzing to life. Elizabeth saw what was happening to gasp. "Blolasky, stop it!" she screamed.

Cole watched the crowd become paranoid as she sounded distraught. Something wasn't going right. Blolasky quickly recovered and ran to the keyboards to pound on the keys to stop the machine. As he typed, he could hear a hissing sound as the vents were slowly opening in the chamber and looked at the screen to see them all, but the Nanomeds, opened. "Ohno." he gasped silently. Cole and everyone slowly stood up from their chairs as they were starting to become more paranoid. Something wasn't definitely right. Blolasky kept typing on the keyboard as fast as he could to close the lead doors to contain the radiation before it spread. But the monitor flashed error signs that it couldn't work. This was gonna end horribly. "Everyone get out before it's too late!" he screamed to warn them.

Everyone, but the Ninja, quickly scattered away as sparks began to emit from the machine. It was now a race against death from gamma radiation. Cole and the others quickly jumped into action and calmly evacuated everyone before they trampled over one another. The earth ninja looked over his shoulders to see Blolasky escorting Elizabeth off the stage and ran to the front of the chamber and grabbed onto the lead doors and struggled to pulled them together; hopefully to seal the doors. The sound of static filled the air and a rouge electrical discharge erupted in front of Blolasky and struck him in the chest to push him away.

Lloyd turned to gasp as the man flew back and landed on top of him. The small ninja felt himself crushed as Blolasky was passed out and couldn't remove him off; no matter how much he tried. "Lucas, help!" he cried to his cousin.

Lucas helped some elders out of the building and turned to the shout to gasp. His blood turned to ice. "Lloyd!" he screamed and ran over to him. Cole watched the water ninja run across, jumped over toppled tables, and even Spinjitzues to reach his cousin. The leader heard a hissing sound and saw a red light flashing and turned to see the vent under the plastic bag was slowly opening and gasped as the three were in front of the upcoming blast of light waves. He ran over to the stage to jump up and attempted to seal the doors himself, but no luck. Time was running out. He looked at Lucas as he tried to lift the unconscious man off of Lloyd and saw the bag was slowly being deflated. Time was now running out even faster.

The earth ninja went to the wires to see if he can pull them out, but nothing happened as the machine was in chaotic mode. He was running out of time of options to stop this thing. Cole looked at the bag as it was almost empty and looked at the reactor to ponder. He couldn't shut the doors, remove wires, nothing worked. His teammates were going to die soon if he doesn't do anything.

Until something came to him.

He looked at the chamber that looked like it could be blocked by a body to the stop the blast. But it was suicidal though. He heard that, from Elizabeth, anyone coming in contact with gamma radiation could die. But if there wasn't a way to stop it, it was his only option. Lucas and Rhea sacrificed their lives before, but now it was his turn. To protect the team as the leader.

Cole looked to his right to see the silvery sheet on the floor and back at the struggling water ninja to remove Blolasky off of Lloyd and had an idea. Elizabeth said that the sheet was laced with lead compounds to reflect the radiation away and saw it has a barrier for the three. He ran to snatch the sheet up and off the stage to aid them. When he reached the three, he looked at Lucas without saying a word. The water ninja looked up to stare at Cole with the large sheet in his hands. "Cole, what are you doing?" he asked. "Help me get him off of Lloyd." Cole didn't respond and threw the lead sheet over the three and ran back to the stage. Lucas thought it over what he just done and realized. "Cole, don't!" he shouted. "It's suicide!"

"I'm taking one for the team!" Cole shouted back and jumped onto the stage.

"Nanomeds entering the chamber." a computerized voice announced. "Warning. Chamber doors aren't closing. Please stay clear of area."

Cole looked over his shoulders to the now deserted room as all, but Lucas, Lloyd, and Blolasky, evacuated safely. Lucas and the other two will be safe under it. He looked at the chamber as he was committing the ultimate sacrifice to stop the radiation from spreading. He looked back at his memories like times he spent with his father and when Sensei Wu formed the team and named him the leader and earth ninja. Strong as a rock. And that's what he'll be. The strongest rock to protect.

He looked back at the bag as it was now deflated and the lights stopped flashing as a humming sound grew larger. Time was up. The Ninja of Earth quickly stood in front of the chamber and wedged his body between the doors. He felt a salty stray tear cascade down his cheek to the sacrifice he was performing and looked straight. He ignored all sounds and heard the chamber growing louder with a flashing red light. He remained still as he saw a flash of green light and then darkness as he fell back.

It happened.

* * *

**Oh I love it when I leave you all in suspense. Do you all think Cole has survived or not? Who knows. Find out next week. Have a wonderful weekend and see you all next time. :)**


	6. Recovery

**Hey everyone, happy Friday. Time for an update. I know that I left you all in a cliffhanger, love doing that to all of you, but you shall see what happens next to Cole. Enjoy.**

* * *

**Chapter 5: Recovery**

He has done it. He sacrificed his life to stop radiation from spreading to affect anyone. Only on to him. He was now dead. Gone. Nothing but a corpse. He could already imagine what his life will be like when he's gone.

He could imagine himself lying on a cold metal table of a morgue with the temperature below zero to preserve the bodies. The stark white sheet covering his clothe-less body and face to notify his death. The mourns and cries of his friends and father as he was gone to them. Soon he would be dressed up and placed in elegant coffin to be buried under six feet of earth. That's what he'll like. To be one with his element. Yes. He could imagine it all.

Wait? How could he imagine this all if he's dead? Was he dead or alive?

_Beep… Beep… Beep… Beep…_

Something didn't feel right. He could hear something. How was that possible? Suddenly a small groan escaped from someone's lips and felt movement from…himself? He could move? Was that possible if you're dead? Or was he not dead after all? "Hey look." a familiar voice rang in his ears. "I think Cole is waking up."

Cole easily recognized it as Jay's voice and couldn't fathom it. He was alive. If you could hear, groan, stir, it's a sign. _Come on. _he said to himself. _Open your eyes. _He heard another groan escape felt his heavy eyes opening up slowly and immediately closed them to the bright fluorescent lights. _Again. _he commanded his body. He felt his eyes slowly opening with what little will power he could muster and finally pried them open. All he saw was a bright light.

The light was bright to burn his retinas after being in darkness for who knows how long. It burns. The light slowly dimmed as his amber eyes were slowly adjusting to see the fluorescent bulbs above him. He kept squinting his eyes to the blink to the slow intensity and carefully turned his head to observe his surroundings. He founded himself in a room thay smelled sterile with the blinds of the window opened.

He was lying on a bed to be dressed in something else than his black suit, but his black tee shirt covered by stark white sheets. He looked to his left to see a monitor of a line moving across with peaks and valleys of his heart rate as the wires wound out and disappeared under his shirt. While a bag of clear liquid ran down in a thin tube and into his left hand; an IV unit. He looked away from the machine he was hooked up to and looked around to see people in the room. People he recognized.

He looked to his right to see Sensei Wu, Laurie, and Nya sitting on the rows of chairs while Zane, Kai, and Jay were standing against the wall. But no sight of Lloyd or Lucas. Where were they? Were they alright? He looked to his left as the sound of a cane tapping on the floor brought his attention and saw his family member by his bed; his father. No one spoke up a word. Lou gave out a tearful smile as the edges of his lips quivered and wrapped his arms around his son. Cole was taken by surprise on what was happening and hugged him back while patting his back. "Uh...what happened?" he asked as he looked over his shoulder to speak.

"What happened was that you took a nasty punch of radiation to pass out." Jay blurted out. "Dude, you survived that and are alive. You're a freakin' legend!"

What? Cole couldn't understand his jabber of talking quickly. He survived? He felt his father releasing him and looked at his brown eyes to see the truth. Lou looked down at his son and saw the glint in his eyes and nodded without speaking. Cole tried to sit up, but felt a wave of nausea hit him hard after he lifted his head off the pillow and slumped back down and felt his world spinning. He closed his eyes to feel the pain pounding his head crease down and slowly opened them. "How long was I out for?" he asked. "And what does he mean?"

Zane pulled himself off from the wall to walk up to Cole's bed and stood to his right. The Ninja of Ice placed a hand on his shoulder to look at the leader with a small smile. "You've been out for a couple of days." he replied softly. "While you were gone, I had to take charge over the team as the leader by Sensei's orders and we stopped a few Serpentine plots." He can reanimate everything that happened in the past days in his databanks. On how small they were without Cole helping them and the few close calls of foiling their plots before being defeated by the enemy. "But we're all glad to see our brother awake."

"Yeah." Kai agreed while crossing his arms over his chest and adjust the sleeves of his sweatshirt. "We were all worried for you after you blacked out. Things were different when Zane was the replacement leader, but he lead well as you would." The fire ninja saw a small smile on the nindroid's lips for the compliment. "But we're glad to see that you're doing alright and want you back as our leader soon. Not that we don't like Zane, but we're a team."

"Hear hear." Jay added while stuffing his hands in his pockets. He then began to chuckle. "While you were gone, you should've seen the look on the general's faces when they saw Lucas back on the team. They looked frightened to see him. I think Skales said something like 'You'll rue the day on the Solstice Battle'."minicking the Hypnobrai's voice while shaking a fist and laughing again. "It was funny though."

Cole smiled to know the city and team were safe while he was gone. He even chuckled a little to know the Serpentine were still scared of them while he was gone. But it soon left his lips as he didn't see the grey and green ninja in his room. Where were they still? "And Lucas and Lloyd?" he inquired. "Are they alright?" then remembered Blolasky. "And Blolasky? Is he alright as well?"

Sensei Wu stood up from his chair and stood next to Zane. "My son and nephew are alright." he replied softly. "As well as the one named Blolasky. He's recovering in the room next to yours." His facial expression then changed to a small frown. "As for Lloyd though, he only has bruised a couple of ribs and one of them is cracked after Blolasky fell on top of him. But he's doing fine. They both just stepped out to get us something to eat. As well as something for you. We somehow knew you'd be waking up soon." And at the exact moment, the door opened to have Lucas and Lloyd walking in.

Cole looked at the two ninjas as they carried food into the room. A box of donuts in Lloyd's arms and a tray of coffee, or tea, or maybe even hot chocolate in Lucas' arms. The Ninja of Earth smiled to know the two were fine after he threw the lead blanket over them to protect them from the radiation, but slightly frowned on Lloyd's injury. "How do you feel, Squirt?" he asked Lloyd.

Lloyd looked at Cole on what he meant and realized the subject and handed Kai the box and walked over to his bedside next to Lou. He unzipped his green sweatshirt and pulled up the right side of his green tee shirt to show the black ninja his injury. Cole saw the white bandages wrapped around his chest with pale green paste, that he suspected Zane mixed together to help the bones, underneath the wrapping. The small ninja smiled to show Cole he was fine and lowered his shirt down. "I'm doing fine." he replied. "Mine or Lucas' powers couldn't heal the bones so Zane whipped up this green paste that'll help. So now I can't train or fight or do anything till they heal. So you hungry?"

Cole chuckled and nodded and Lloyd went to Kai to grab the box. The black ninja was relieved to know the green ninja was healing well. That'll keep him from sneaking out. The earth ninja watched the small ninja walked back with the box and gazed around the assorted pastries. Since he woke up and slowly recovering, he slowly sat himself up better and picked a plain donut to take a bite and let out a low sickly groan as it touched his taste buds. He started feel nausea and lightheaded as he swallowed his bite.

Lucas and the others heard him complain and noticed he looked a bit pale. They became worried a little now. "You alright, Cole?" the water ninja asked while sipping his hot chocolate.

Cole nodded. "Yeah." he groaned. "I just feel sick that's all."

"Here." the grey ninja said and handed Zane his foam cup and reached into the pockets of his sweatshirt. "The cafeteria suggested this to us to give to you to help you eat regular food." He pulled out a small container and a plastic spoon. "It may be a bit bland a little, but it'll help. Trust me." and tossed the items to the leader before grabbing his drink from the white ninja.

Cole quickly tossed his donut on the movable tray on his left and caught the contents the water ninja gave him. It was a small plastic cup with the lid on top to seal the contents inside and it felt chilled in his hands. He removed the lid to see it was white yogurt inside, but felt a bit upset as it was vanilla and not mixed berry or other fruit flavor than vanilla. But like Lucas said, it'll help him and he'll trust him on it. He scooped up a small spoonful of the gelatin food and brought it to his lips to eat and felt less sick than before. "Thanks Lucas." he said. "I feel a bit better." He took another spoonful to eat and set it aside. "So...how did I survive?" and turned his head as the door was opened quickly and blinked in surprised to see his dance partner from the ball. What was she doing here? "Elizabeth?" he gasp.

"Oh my god." the raven-haired girl breathed in an audiable whisper as she slowly took a step forward. Everyone could see she looked surprised and scared. She kept shaking as she saw that Cole was alive in front of her from the radiation he took. "Cole!" she yelped and ran up to him and wrapped her arms tightly around him.

Cole was surprised by this and slowly wrapped his arms around her. Lou watched his son hug the unknown teen back and wondered in suspicion. Was she a friend from the performing arts school? Or someone special that he hasn't mentioned to him yet? He wasn't gonna find out if he kept staring at the two. He cleared his throat and tapped his cane on the floor. "Eh Cole," he asked with a small. "Are you gonna introduce us your friend?"

Elizabeth released Cole to face the quartet dancer and blushed a little for an unknown reason. Cole rolled his amber eyes as he knew what his father was asking. "Dad, this is Elizabeth and..."

"Please call me Betty." she interrupted.

"Eh Betty," he continued. "And she was my partner from this ball we were invited to and the scientist who helped create the machine..." he paused. The earth ninja could see the glint of guilt in Eliz-Betty's ice blue eyes. He could sense on how much pity she had for everything to have him in the hospital. He felt bad that if he blames her for everything. He looked up at everyone and turned his gaze down. "That was suppose to help change the world." he sighed.

Betty looked at Cole with the same guilty look on her face. She blamed herself that Cole and her partner are in the hospital. That wasn't suppose to happen at all. The machine was to help. Not put people in harm with radiation; especially in Cole. "I'm sorry, Cole." she said. "That wasn't suppose to happen. I made sure everything was accurate and yet the project is now terminated. My main concern is how you survived." Everyone looked at her confused as well. "Cole, you shouldn't be alive because of what you've done."

"Why not?" Lloyd asked through a mouthful of a chocolate donut.

Betty looked at Lloyd with a frown. "Because gamma radiation is deadly to those that come in contact with it." she explained. "It's the highest light wave that can cause death."

"Why were you using that amount of energy if you knew it was dangerous to use?" Zane asked while sipping his drink. "Surely there could've been another way."

Betty looked at him to shake her head. "There isn't." she stated. "Not anymore there isn't." sighing as her and Blolasky's work was terminated. "After a year's of research, Blolasky and I created the Nanomeds to help improve the immune system. Our only way to improve them was gamma rays and I was worried on how it affects humans. Clearly what was seen by the board of directors at the university, they discontinued the Nanomed project. Just can't understand though how you survived after a direct blast."

Cole looked up at her to ponder. He remembered bits and pieces on how the machine worked. How it converted the gamma radiation to deliver the Nanomeds in the chamber. How the frog used as the test subject. And the clear bag that housed the Nanomeds. Wait. The bag. Cole remembered that the bag was deflated after he threw himself to the stop the blast. The Nanomeds worked. "The Nanomeds." he stated finally.

Everyone stared at him confused on his response. Did he just say the Nanomeds? "Okay did you just say what we all think you said?" Jay asked.

Cole nodded. "Yeah. That's how I survived." he said and looked at Betty. "Betty, it worked. The Nanomeds kept me alive. Your machine does work. I'm still alive."

Betty was flabbergasted and surprised. The Nanomeds can keep a person alive. "Oh my god." she gasped quietly. It can happen. People can survive gamma radiation with the Nanomeds infused into them. It was a miracle. "It's possible. But my machine is now gone. But my research is still with me, but don't know how to continue it. But it's also my fault that you're here."

"Don't feel bad for yourself." said Sensei Wu as he walked up to her and placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "What has happened, happened." he began with his sayings. "The past is the past and we cannot change it. My student and your teacher will recover and you can figure out your research. Remember, no one is blaming you."

Betty looked into the elder's grey eyes to warmly smile at him. "Thank you." she said, relieved. She looked at Cole and then everyone else. "So now what?" she wondered. "What's gonna happen now?" and no one had an idea.

There was a knock on the door and all turned to the door as it was being opened to see a nurse with reddish brown hair to reach her shoulders and blue eyes walking in. She looked up from looking down at her clipboard to blink in surprise at the surrounding visitors. "Oh my." she stuttered. "I didn't know how many visitors would be here." She chuckled lightly. "I just came by to check on our earth ninja here and noticed he's awake. So I need to give him a check up and I'm also sorry but visiting hours are over. You can come visit tomorrow." Everyone looked at each other and knew it was time.

Cole felt upset that he was being left alone after he woke up, but he figured as it was time to go as the sun was setting behind the city. He watched the nurse check his pulse and vitals and went to the monitor and watched the others getting ready to leave. "You guys are gonna keep visiting, right?" he asked while trying to not sound like a whining kid. "Because we're family and a team after all."

Everyone looked at their earth brother to smile. Of course they'll visit him till he's strong again. "Of course we'll visit, Cole." said Jay. "We're family and we take care of each other. Just right now we have to go to train and make sure Garmadon or Serpentine don't attack. And once you're back to our 'Strong as a rock' guy again, we'll save a few Serpentine for you to beat to a pulp. He-he." he laughed.

Cole smiled on the future plan after recovery from his family and said his good-byes after they left, including his father, but not Betty. She stayed a little longer after the nurse left. Why? "So what's gonna happen now?" he asked her.

"I'm not sure, Cole." she shrugged. "Just let this all be normal for now. You're alive and mine and Blolasky's research can continue. Just rest now." She slowly found herself leaning closer to Cole's face to have her lips make contact to his. Cole felt surprised on the warm lips pressing against his and lost himself to her. They could even hear the heart rate monitor increasing by the number of beats. The raven-haired girl pulled herself away to blush with a smile. "I...I'm sorry." she stuttered. "I'm...glad you're alright now. And before I forget," She reached into her hand bag. "I have something for you." and pulled out a gift underneath black silk cloth and placed it on the tray by his bedside. "Get well soon, Rocky." she said and left Cole's room.

Once the door closed behind her, the earth ninja looked at the gift she left and pulled the silk off to smile as it was his masquarade mask from the ball. But then thought about what just happened. Betty kissed him again. Did she have a reason or not? But what about him though? He never felt this way to anyone before. Did she think of the same way to him? "What am I thinking?" he said to himself. "I'm a ninja and she's a scientist and we may be the same age, but she may see me as someone like Jay who loves Nya or Kai with Laurie." He looked at his mask again to think about the fun he had with Betty at the ball and the kiss and gently laid back to stare out at the window. "I think I'm in love." he said, lovestruck.

* * *

**Oh a little spark happening to our earth ninja, huh? I suck at love moments, because I'm a guy and does action scenes well and not kissing moments so bear with me if that went well. But anyway, I hoped you enjoyed to know Cole survived and hoped all of you readers had a fun Christmas year and will see you all next week. :)**


	7. Transformation

**Hey everyone and happy Friday. Time for an update and I've been excited for this one because the moment of the story has come for Cole. Oh and I forgot to mention this before in my other chapters. This entire story is a rewrite from scenes from the two Hulk movies but with the Ninja added in. The first one sucked but the second one was better. Anyway, I have a soundtrack to set the tone just right for Cole. Type the link, watch?v=1oiG8KmKpqo and wait at the time at 0:25 and when you see the mark, *, play it and stop the soundtrack when you see the next mark, *. Enjoy. **

* * *

**Chapter 6: Transformation**

Cheers of joy waved in the air on the Bounty as the earth ninja slowly walked up onto the ship's deck. A week has passed and Cole was finally checked out of the hospital. He no longer felt weak or tired, but strong and active. But was told to stay away from training and fighting for another week or so until he was fully recovered. He felt upset that he couldn't fight with his family when he heard the bad news. But he understood after he threw himself to stop gamma rays from spreading wide. But he was glad to be home though.

Cole looked around the deck to see his family congratulating him or patting his back as they were glad that he was home. He now felt how Lucas felt when he finally woke up and came home. But was still glad that they kept his promise on visiting him and telling him news during his absense. Been told about the Serpentine attacks, Lloyd's slowly healed injuries, and even Betty came to visit him a couple of times. He even heard Blolasky checked out before him. But whenever she came to visit him, he kept wondering about the kiss they had before. What was that all about? He didn't care to ask as he was glad to be home.

The sun was setting as it was getting dark as the earth ninja finally stood in the center of the deck. The Ninja were proud to have their elemental earth leader back to the team as they could be whole again. They even threw a little welcome home party for him. Nothing much but pats from the guys and hugs from the girls. It was great to be home.

Cole heard the sound of a staff tapping on the wooden floor to smile as Sensei Wu walked up to him. The elder gave him a warm smile and placed a hand on his shoulder; welcoming his student home. "It is good to have you back, Cole." he said softly.

The Ninja of Earth smiled back to his teacher. "It's good to be home, Sensei." he said back. He looked around the deck to smile at everyone as they smiled at him. He could tell that they were glad to have him back home. But he was glad to be out of the hospital room so he could be with everyone again. "And thank you for doing this for me."

Kai walked up to him and playfully pulled Cole's hood of his black hoodie over his head and looped an arm around his neck. "Hey it's no sweat, Cole." he laughed. "We thought it would be helpful now that you're out of the hospital. So you want to go back to your roots and train that flabby body of yours." He chuckled and lightly punched his shoulder.

Cole chuckled with his fiery brother and removed his arm off his neck and pulled the hood off. Normally he would be pounding Kai to a pulp, but he knew he was joking since he was bed-resting for the time. "Can't." he simply replied. "The doc said that I should lay off on training for awhile. Even though I have those Nanomeds inside me, it's best if I get some rest still. Plus I'm still tired."

Everyone looked at the leader to nod in agreement. It's best to follow doctor's rules. "I agree it is wise to follow the doctor's rules, Cole." said Zane. "You should head down and I'll make some Miso soup for you later."

Cole smiled. "Thanks Frosty." he said. "Well... Night everyone." The earth ninja turned to the steps and slowly walked down the hall without tripping on his feet and walked down till he reached his shared bedroom. He couldn't help, but smile as he was back. After he entered his room and kicked his shoes off and threw his hoodie to the floor to be in his black tee shirt and sweatpants, the earth ninja looked at his bed to smile as he glad to be back in his own bed under Kai's. For once he couldn't wait to sleep on the lumpy mattress. The black ninja turned his head to the window to see the sun had finally set and the moon was rising to darken the room and slowly climbed into his bed, threw the comforter over him and slowly drifted into sleep as soon as his head touched the pillow.

It was great to be home.

...

"Man it sure is great to have Cole home." said Jay as he sat next to Nya on the couch. Everyone began to pile into the living room after the small celebration they held for the team leader's return and sat around. All was quiet now. Not even the TV was one or video games being played. Just utter quietness. The lightning ninja raised his scarred eyebrow to the quietness and kept thinking of a way to break the ice. "Eh... Now that our leader is back," he continued. "We can a ninja team again. Not that I hate having Zane as the temporary leader, but it's great to have him back."

Lucas slumped into the bean bag chair while Lloyd sat next to him. "Yeah it's great to have Cole back." he agreed and picked up the two controllers and handed the other to Lloyd. "But as soon as he recovers, we'll be back to his commands, not that I hate them before, but it'll be great from him." and turned the TV on to begin playing Fist to Face 2 with his cousin.

"You know Lucas," Nya smirked. "I've been wondering. I've been noticing that Betty has been visiting Cole for awhile now, but what about things with you and the girl, Dawn, from the ball. I think she has a liking to you." and winked at the water ninja.

Lucas chuckled while jamming his fingers and thumbs on the buttons of the controller. "Oh her." he said. He knew what the samurai was doing. She was trying to get him to set up a date. "Oh that was nothing really. She was my dance partner like for Zane and Lloyd so it's nothing really. Plus she's in a village in the mountains so I probably won't see her again. And she's only a friend."

"Sure." Kai remarked with a sly grin on his lips. "That's what they always say. But by then, we'll be seeing you climbing onto the deck with lipstick marks all over your face in the morning." Lucas paused his game and gave the fire ninja a blank stare while he still had a smirk. The water ninja placed his controller down and held his hand up to blow mist over his fiery brother's face. The Ninja of Fire cringed his face to feel the wet droplets touch his face to open his eyes to stare at the TV that had a dark background to show him his reflection. He turned his gaze at the grey ninja to glare at him for the message. _I'm a fire head jerk that can be beaten by water. _"Oh you're so gonna get it." he threatened and lunged himself at Lucas.

Both boys rolled on the floor and Lucas quickly placed his socked feet on Kai's chest and pushed him off. The fire ninja gave out a grunt of pain when his back made contact to the wall and lunged himself again at the water ninja to wrestle. Both ignored the cries or pleads from everyone else as they were making a ruckus while Cole was close to them to bother his sleep. Laurie watched her boyfriend and cousin fight and sighed in annoyance as her cousin was using his powers to push Kai back while he threw whatever he could find to throw at him. She quickly yelped in surprise as something tapped her shoulder to surprise her and turned to see Zane. "I am sorry if I startled you, Laurie." the ice ninja apologized while shifted his hands on the tray of soup he was carrying. "But I was on my way to give this to Cole, but can you do it for me so I can stop this feud?"

The wind ninja looked up at the nindroid to nod. "Yeah sure." she replied. "I can do that." She got up to her feet and gently took the tray from Zane. The Ninja of Ice gave her a warm smile of a thank you and quickly walked up to the brawling ninjas. She watched from the doorway to see him pushing Kai and Lucas away to shout at them and left.

...

Cole tossed and turned as the noise outside the room disrupted his sleep. What were they doing out there to wake him up? He tried to muffle all sounds by throwing his pillows over his head, but it didn't help and quickly prompt himself up to glare at the door. "Keep it down will ya!" he shouted. "I'm trying to sleep here!" He suddenly felt nausea hit him in the head. His throat felt dry to prevent him from swallowing. Not to mention being light-headed, clammy skin, and the feeling of vomiting. He didn't like the last feeling and climbed out of his bed to stagger to the bathroom to fall near the toilet to dry heave.

He didn't feel anything coming out of his stomach and grabbed onto the wall to pull himself up and walked over to the sink, unbalanced. He turned the faucet to have cold water pouring out and cupped his hands under the water and felt a shiver to his burning skin. Once the water filled up the small makeshift cup, the earth ninja quickly splashed it onto his face and steadied himself on the sink. He still felt sick. He heard the noise growing louder and he kept glaring at the door. Will they ever shut up?

*****The black ninja felt his hands shaking and looked at them to see his veins bulging out and could see tints of green on his skin. "What the?" he asked and shutted his eyes tightly as a migraine headache grew and held his head. He tried to pass the pain to open his eyes to look for some aspirins, but froze as his eyes were no longer amber, but were bright green. "What the hell?" he said to himself and cried out to squeeze his eyes shut and flung himself out of the bathroom.

Cole felt his body ripping itself apart as the wet sound of bones were dislocating from where they were. In the dark room, he could see his veins and skin turning green with his fingers growing longer and thicker. The sound of bones popping made him look down to see his legs were growing larger to make his black ankle socks snap in half to the large feet stretching them. He tried to call for help, but only gave out low growls and felt his face changing. He heard something ripping and noticed that his chest was growing larger and his shirt was being stretched out to see his large dark green muscles while the calves of his sweatpants were ripped to be into shorts while he was growing till his head touched the ceiling. He slouched a little to see his hands, feet, face, and even muscles grew larger as he stared at the reflecton from the bathroom. He tried to speak, but only gave out grunts and growls.

What happened to him?*****

...

The small bowl of Miso soup rattled on the tray after each step was taken. As well as the plate of crackers. The orange ninja's footfalls echoed in the empty hallway while the sound of shouting and destruction was behind her. She was glad to stay out of the room while they settled their argument. She didn't want to take part of it. When the red-haired girl reached the door to the guy's room and before she knocked, she could hear low grunts and wood groaning. _Is Cole alright in there?_ she wondered. Curiously, she knocked on the door and slowly opened it. "Cole, are...you...all...right?" she asked with her voice cracking to gasp what was in the room.

Laurie felt her hands slip and the tray crashed onto the floor to shatter the bowl and plate. She couldn't find her voice as she was staring at an eleven foot, muscular dark green giant with black shaggy hair and green eyes like the stone warriors before. The giant stared straight at her and took a step forward while reaching a massive hand at her. This time, Laurie found her voice and screamed to the top of her lungs and held her hands out. She felt a gust of wind run through her hair and watched the giant being pushed back and slammed the door shut and tripped on her feet to hit her back against the wall across the room. Her heartbeat was pounding against her chest while giving out quick breaths. "Laurie!" she heard Kai and Lloyd's voices shouting.

The orange ninja heard multiple footfalls running down the hall and turned her head to see everyone running down the hall to see everyone pile in. She saw that everyone, but Lloyd, had their weapons drawn out and were worried for her. They could see the wide light blue eyes and paler skin that was shaking like a leaf. She looked like as if she seen a ghost. Lloyd walked up to his sister and knelt next to her. "You alright, Sis?" he asked, worriedly for her. "You look like you've seen a ghost or something."

The wind ninja couldn't find her voice after the scream and tried to calm herself down. Once she felt her heartbeat slowing down a bit, the red-haired girl raised a shaking finger and pointed at the door. "Th-there's something in there!" she replied quickly.

Everyone looked at her confused and slowly lowered their weapons. "Uh Laurie, the only thing that would be in would be Cole." Lucas stated. "And he's asleep."

"He is not!" the Ninja of Winds bellowed. "Before I entered that room, I heard grunts and growls of a monster. He was big and had green eyes!"

_Green eyes?_ Kai wondered. He thought it over and wondered if it was the stone warriors before Lucas woke up. The ones terrorizing the streets and the four-armed one Laurie fought against on the rooftop of Ninjago City Tower until theu disappeared after Rhea died. Were they back? The fire ninja looked over at Zane. "Do you think it's those stone men are back?" he wondered.

The ice ninja looked at him to shrugs his shoulders. "I haven't sensed their presense since the last time they were around." he shrugged. He closed his eyes and felt a buzzing feeling in the back of his head with his sixth sense. But he didn't feel any of the stone warriors. He still felt Cole in there. The nindroid opened his eyes to look at everyone's wondering eyes. "The only presense I feel is Cole's." he said and looked at Laurie. "Laurie, are you sure you just thought of them and didn't see Cole?"

There was a large roar and heard a large crash from the bedroom to have everyone stare at the door. That definitely did not sound like Cole. Something else though. "You believe me now?!" Laurie asked while jumping to her feet. "Something else is in there with Cole!"

Everyone looked at her to see the fear in her eyes and slowly drawn their weapons out and the fire, ice, water, and lightning ninja pressed their backs against the wall near the door while Laurie, Nya, and Lloyd moved aside. Zane grabbed the door knob and held up three fingers and slowly counted down till he made a fist and turned the knob. The four ninja jumped into their room to approach the danger inside but lowered their weapons as it was empty with a large hole in the wall from the bathroom. What ever was in there was gone. They slowly walked up to the hole to inspect it and noticed the torn shirt, socks, and parts of black cloth and bent wood on the floor. Jay looked up to see Ninjago City in the distance and turned around to gasp. "Cole's missing!" he screamed.

Everyone turned around to see where the blue ninja was shouting about and gasped to the empty bunk bed. Laurie, Nya, and Lloyd entered the room as it was clear to enter and were shocked on the news. Cole was missing. There was no trace of him anywhere or presense of Zane's sixth sense. The Ninja of Earth was missing in action, M.I.A. Lloyd walked up to the bed and looked at the others. "Who could've taken him?" he asked.

That was the thing. They didn't know. Well maybe not for Laurie, as she saw it with her own eyes, but what was it still? Everyone ponder on what could've happened until they heard the familiar roar in the distance and turned their heads to the hole and saw Ninjago City. "What ever it was that Laurie saw must've snucked in and took Cole and is heading to the city." said Lucas and spun into his armorized suit. "I say we follow it and get him back."

"You think it's wise?" Jay asked. "What does it want with Cole?"

"We're not sure why, Jay." Zane chasisted. "But Cole is our brother and I agree with Lucas on getting him back." and spun into his suit. Everyone ninja nodded in agreement and spun into their suits, besides Nya since she couldn't perform Spinjitzu. Even Lloyd, itching to join in on the search, spun into his green gi and pants and threw the mask over his face.

Laurie saw what was happening from her brother and crossed her bo staff lightly across his chest. "Oh no you don't." she said. "You're still injuried and don't want to rethink on the last time this happened." Thinking about Rhea saving him from Skalidor, but injuring him as well. "You're staying here."

The boy looked up at his sister to pout. "Come on, Sis." he argued. "I'm fine and want to help find Cole."

Lucas walked up to his cousin and placed a gloved hand on his shoulder. "We know you do," he agreed. "But I agree with your sister that you're injured to help. Plus we don't know what's out there that can hurt you. I don't like it when something happens to you, Lloyd. Neither does your sister. So as your guardians, we are telling you to stay put. My dad will make sure you're safe while we search for Cole. Understand?"

The green ninja looked up at his cousin's eyes and then at his sister's to sigh and removed his mask. No point of arguing now if they were gonna win. He watched everyone gather around near the hole and jumped down to the dirt ground and run towards Ninjago City. He was now alone. He could hear his uncle calling his name and looked at the city in the distance. He knows his cousin and sister said 'No' but he wasn't keep that promise. He was a ninja too and part of the team. "I'm gonna help no matter what." he said to himself. "Cole is my friend too and I'm gonna help. Whether they like it or not." and walked up to the wall. The green ninja pulled the green breathable mask over his face and jumped down to land clumsily on the ground and ran after the others in darkness.

* * *

**Oh I enjoy leaving cliffhangers. Especially what happened to Cole. I hoped you enjoyed the chapter and soundtrack that took me forever to find and hey why not use one from the movie. So that worked out perfectly. So what do you think is gonna happen? Don't know, find out next week. Have a wonderful weekend and see you all next week.**


	8. Searching for the Missing Brother

**Hey everyone, happy Friday, time for an update. So last week, I left you all in a cliffhanger, love doing that, and now the search for Cole begins. But will they find out it's him. Find out in this chapter. Enjoy.**

* * *

**Chapter 7: Searching for the Missing Brother**

Silence. That was all that was heard. The streets of the largest city of Ninjago were quiet. Except for the hums of passing vehicles driving down, buzzing of neon signs and the soft footfalls of five ninjas and one samurai as they walked down the road near the center of the city; lookout for whatever took their leader.

Laurie gripped her wooden weapon nervously as she walked behind Zane, Kai, and Jay with Nya and her cousin beside her. She kept fixing her gaze around her surroundings to see lights flickering in the buildings, any movements on the streets, or the others. She was nervous on what she saw and thought of Lloyd. It reminded her when Rhea lived with them and had the two children stay when they went to find Skales and the other generals. But Lloyd had to sneak out and nearly taken prisoner if it wasn't for the small assassin saving him. She was worrying if her brother performed the same trick and crossed the dark green monster. She didn't want her brother getting hurt. Sighing, the red-haired girl pushed it aside in her mind and looked at her cousin. "So Lucas," she began to break the silence. "Lloyd has told me interesting things about you."

The grey ninja's gaze kept shifting to look for danger and stared his hazel grey eyes at her. "Oh…he has?" he inquired, his voice muffled a little under the material of his mask.

The orange ninja nodded. "He has told me about everything that happened when you guys first met as my father's apprentice." she said. "Is most of it true?"

Lucas looked at the second guardian to nod. It was true. Being Garmadon's apprentice. Kidnapping Lloyd to almost turn him evil by the Great Devourer's venom. Join his father as a ninja when he unlocked his True Potential to know who he was. Fleeing with Lloyd as the others were evil and sold himself to save the others from evil. Collecting shards to repair the Twilight Mirror. Being whipped for betrayal to have long scars on his back. And sacrificing his life to die in his father's arms after ending the Solstice Battle. But did come back to life to become Lloyd's guardian. "Whatever Shrimp told you," he said. "Is true. All of it."

The wind ninja looked at him and nodded. "Alright then." she said quietly.

Everyone kept walking down the roar in utter quietness now. Laurie didn't bother asking Lucas anymore questions about his past. The Ninja and samurai walked past the Doomsday Comic Store to hear the bright blue neon sign buzzing and flickering. Where was the green thing Laurie saw and said? There hasn't been any sign of destruction or cry for help. Where was it?

"Someone, help!?" a voice cried.

Laurie stopped to feel her blood turn to ice and gasped. She knew that cry from anyone she knew. Lloyd. He snuck out again and was in danger and no one was there with him. "Lloyd." she gasped. "Lucas, we need to find…" she paused as her cousin was right beside her was gone. She was confused. "Uh… Wasn't my cousin here like a minute ago?" she asked dumb-folded on how quick and quiet he left.

The others looked at each other to smirk underneath their masks. The Ninja of Wind was still confused on her cousin's disappearance and wondered why they were all smirking. They all heard Lloyd's shout, but then Lucas disappeared from the group. Why were they smirking? "Typical Lucas." Kai simply said while crossing his arms and shaking his head with a smirk. Laurie furrowed her brows in confusion on what he meant.

…

Lucas ran down the deserted streets as fast as his legs could let him. His footfalls echoed loudly from his shoes as he tore across the asphalt to save the one who made that cry. Lloyd. When he heard that scream, he had to run to save him from danger. He hated it when his cousin was in trouble; especially when sneaking out. He didn't know what he got himself into this time. First skeletons, Serpentine, Belinda, Serpentine again, then the stone people from when the others told him when he woke up from his coma. This time it could be the generals or worse, the thing on the Bounty. To that, Lucas became more worried and sped down faster with his sai's in hand.

"Someone! Anyone! Help!" Lloyd cried in the distance.

_I'm coming, Lloyd. _Lucas said to himself. _Just hang on. _and jumped.

The water ninja concentrated on his powers and felt cool liquid surrounding his body and felt himself airborne as his powers enable him to be surrounded in a jet of water to take flight. Something he learned after he save Lloyd from falling off a cliff in the Misty Forest after he kidnapped him and when he escaped to not see where he was running towards. Now uses it to escape from danger or seek out trouble.

The grey ninja felt airborne and loomed over the buildings to seek his cousin. He closed his eyes to concentrate on his hearing as water allowed to heighten his hearing and heard Lloyd's shout to the right of him and directed the jet to the direction. He scanned around the ground and saw something move into an alley and saw something green with it and had no doubt that it was Lloyd and dove to the ground to land in a crouch with his weapons in hand. "Now you have two options." he said coldly, voice sounding like malice and steel while lifting his head up. "Either you let my cousin go or suffer…the…consequences." his voice cracked in utter surprise to what was in front of him.

In front of him was a large, thick muscular, dark green giant with thick black shaggy hair with emerald green eyes. He looked three or four times larger than Cole would look. Even the black pants stretched to their limit to remain on. But what surprised Lucas the most was that in its massive hand was Lloyd, kicking his legs as the large fingers were pinning his arms to his sides all the way to his hips. Almost like a Constrictai. Laurie was right. There was something that was with Cole. But where was he?

Lloyd stopped his attempts on escaping and nervously smiled and laughed at his cousin underneath his mask. He knew he was in trouble for sneaking out and was gonna get a huge talk from his guardians. "Lucas, help!" he shouted.

Lucas stood there amazed to see this giant in front of him and shook himself back. "Give me back my cousin now!" he demanded. "Or face my bad side." The giant looked down at the puny human and shot glares at him. He simply growled and swung his free hand out at him. "Whoa!" the Ninja of Water shouted and ducked the massive hand and watched it slam into a dumpster like it was a tin can. "Alright you asked for it." he barked and jumped to his feet and charged at it.

The green figure roared and brought his hand back with a piece of the metal dumpster and threw it. Lucas saw it coming and jumped up to land on the brick wall and used the momentum to launch himself to the fire escape while the piece of metal was thrown to another alley. The giant screamed and reached up to grab the metal stairs to tear them off the foundation with Lucas on the floor above it. Lloyd felt himself being shaken like a ragdoll to the monster's movements and groaned as he felt his back slam against the wall. Lucas maintained his balance as the fire escape was breaking apart from below and saw his cousin. _I got to save him before this monster kills him. _he thought. The grey ninja felt the floor give way and jumped while holding out his hands and fired pressurized water from his palms to the giant and landed.

The giant groaned to the pressurized liquid hitting him in the face and released his grip on the boy as he stumbled back. Lloyd landed clumsily on the dirt ground and puddle and quickly ran to his cousin while holding his chest. He should've stayed on the ship because his ribs were aching after being shaken around. "I'm fine, Lucas." he lied. "Ninja Recover."

Lucas rolled his eyes at his cousin's fib. He knew he wasn't alright. Both the grey and green ninja heard a groan and turned to the thing as it glared at them and took a step forward. "Get behind me, Lloyd." he said to his cousin.

The giant took another step and clutched his fists tightly. Lloyd saw the threat and quickly stood in front of his cousin and brought his hands together and closed his eyes tightly. He felt power and energy swell up in his chest and shifted his hands to open his eyes and saw himself surrounded in a green aura orb. Lucas saw the power his cousin was using and took a step back. He had seen that power once when his uncle brought deceased pirates back from the dead to fight on the Black Bounty and Lloyd used his powers to cause the mast to fall on top of him to render him into the coma. "Light him up!" Lloyd shouted and clapped his hands to push the sphere forward.

The aura of green light traveled in quick speed and collided into the giant. He groaned and fell to one knee while holding his head like he was having a migraine headache. Lucas saw what his cousin had done to stun the figure and sheathed his sai's and grabbed Lloyd's hand. "Good idea to stun him, Shrimp." he complimented. "Just real quick, have you seen Cole before all of this?" Lloyd looked up to shake his head. Lucas groaned in annoyance to not find the earth ninja and looked at the thing as it slowly stood up, but fell to one knee still. The grey ninja studied the thing and looked at the hair to be almost like…Cole's. The bushy eyebrows. He averted his gaze to the pants and saw something gleam on the right leg and peered closely to see a silver dragon head textured like rock.

The Ninja of Water gasped in surprise. The hair. Bushy eyebrows. The muscular body. The black pants that looked like sweatpants with the silvery rocky dragonhead; symbol of the earth ninja. Could it be? There's a reason now why they can't find Cole. It made sense now. "Cole." he gasped.

That thing was Cole itself.

The small ninja looked at his cousin confused. What did he just say? He said that thing was Cole, right? That can't be right. "Lucas, what are you talking about?" he asked. "That thing isn't Cole."

Lucas ignored his statement and slowly took a step forward to approach him. Cole groaned to clear his headache throbbing a little and looked the grey ninja walking up to him and growled to take a step forward and reach out to him. The grey ninja saw what was happening and quickly raised his hands up to defend himself. "Cole, stop!" he shouted and removed his mask. "It's me. Lucas."

Cole stopped his hand and looked down at the one called Lucas. Why does he recognize him? Does he know him from anywhere? He looked at the brown-haired, hazel grey eyed teen and at his hand to look down at a puddle of water at his feet. The street lights reflect the dark alley to reflect the puddle to see his reflection and saw it shift to show his real face instead of green. He blinked in surprise and looked at Lucas and Lloyd. He now remembered them. They were his teammates. But what happened to him?

Lucas saw the reaction and nodded. "That's right, Rockhead." he smiled. "It's us." Lloyd raised an eyebrow on what was happening in front of him. His cousin claimed that the green giant was Cole. How? He studied around the body to an idea if it was him or not until he got this face. The thing has black shaggy hair and bushy brows almost like…Cole. He studied the face more to see the green eyes like the ones of the stone warriors that killed his friend Rhea and blinked in surprise when he looked closely to see it resembled Cole's face. The boy gasped. It was Cole. "Cole, what happened?" Lucas asked.

Before Cole could speak, if he could, he looked up to growl. "Lucas! Lloyd!" Zane shouted. Lucas quickly saw Cole's anger and turned his head to see the others running up to the alley with their weapons drawn out. Everyone stopped to gasp and felt speechless to what was in front of them.

"Whoa!" Jay screamed. "Laurie wasn't kidding! But what the heck is that thing?!"

"Oh my gosh." Nya gasped. "Laurie was right. But I don't know what it is either.

Kai shook his head back to reality and gripped his katana tightly. "Whatever it is," he said. "I say we take this thing down. That thing took Cole." Everyone brought themselves back, still startled, and charged towards Cole without knowing.

Cole clenched his fists tightly to the oncoming brigade and growled to the threat. Lucas saw Cole's anger and quickly pulled Lloyd beside him and stood in front of Cole to protect him. "Guys stop!" he shouted and raised and crossed his arms over his head. A wall of water sprouted from the ground and shielded in front of the three to stop the others. The water ninja slowly lowered the wall and stood in front of Cole more with Lloyd beside him. They could see the others were surprised to what they were doing. "This thing is Cole." he exclaimed.

The four elemental ninja and samurai looked at the grey ninja confused. Did he just say it was Cole? That's impossible! There was no way it was Cole. "Uh Lucas?" Jay said confused. "Are you sure that coma of yours didn't make see things and be crazy?"

Lucas shot glares at him and walked up to him to smack him upside the head, hard. Jay glared at him while rubbing his sore head. "I'm serious guys." said Lucas. "It's Cole. This...Hulk is our earth brother. Laurie said that it was in the room with him when it was him." He looked up at Cole and carefully walked up to him. Everyone saw what was happening and felt their muscles tensing up while gripping their weapons tightly. Cole looked down at him and huffed. It was like taming a wild beast. Lucas slowly reached out to his right leg and pulled the tattered fabric to show everyone the symbol. "Do you see what I see?" he asked. "The symbol of the earth ninja."

Everyone slowly relaxed and looked at the giant claimed to be Cole and studied it and looked at the symbol. Their mouths slowly dropped as they see it now. It was Cole. "Cole?" Zane asked. Cole looked down at his hands to not say anything. "It makes sense now. All of it. The tattered clothes were Cole's and he broke the wall to escape. It's like the apartment when Lloyd was kidnapped. But no one broke in to kidnap Cole because it was him. It would be the logical reason."

Everyone looked at Cole to think over the events and saw it now. The shredded clothes were Cole's due to his rapid growth. The bent floorboards from his weight. And for the hole in the wall, it was like the apartment, but different. If someone was breaking in, the debris would be in the room, not outside. Cole was the one to make that escape. And now the symbol on his leg, it made sense now. It was Cole.

"Well that's just great!" Jay exclaimed. "Cole is this Hulk that could've killed us if Lucas hadn't stopped us and even destroyed the city. How did this even happen to him?"

"Plus," Kai added and looked at Lloyd. "Lloyd, we told you to stay with Sensei. How did you even find yourself here?"

"Cole is my friend too and I wanted to help." the green ninja barked. "I went looking for him, but he found me instead. I was glad to have Lucas rescue me on time before he crushed me."

Laurie gasped and gave her little brother a hard stare. It was like the time he crossed Skalidor and Rhea saved him before he was taken to Skales. She took her eyes off brother to see Cole. The wind ninja couldn't believe that it was him that nearly gave her a heart attack on the Bounty. "If he changed into that, is there any way he can change back to himself?" she asked while lowering her wooden weapon.

Zane placed his shurikens into the hoister attached to his hip and walked up to Cole to open the panel on his left arm. A faint blue light casted around the green giant to reflect a shadow on the brick walls as the ice ninja was scanning Cole until his databank report an error. Odd. It didn't recognize Cole. He closed the panel to roll his sleeve down to his wrist to stare at the others. "My algorithms can't compute Cole's state." he stated. "The only hypothesis for us to wait for Cole to transform back to normal so I can understand more of this. If he changed into this, there could be a way back."

"Meaning?" Lloyd asked confused, while scratching the back of his head.

Before Zane could continue, Nya stepped up. "It's like a werewolf transformation." she plainly stated. "His body changed and can be reversed to normal if we wait."

"So what can we do to wait for Cole to return to normal?" Kai asked while sheathing his sword. He looked around and no one had an idea.

Suddenly, sirens began blaring in the distance with the sound of a helicopter nearby. And it sounded like it was coming near. If the police arrive to see Cole, they wouldn't hesitate to pull out their guns and open fire. Lucas saw what happened when he and the others made him angry before and that would leave a catastrophe to the city. "Cole, you need to get away from the city." he said quickly. "We don't want you to attack the city and harm many citizens. Go! We'll find you if you ever change back. Just get out of the city."

Cole looked down at the others as they nodded in agreement. It looked like the only choice to agree to. But could he change back though? He could hear the sirens and helicopter coming near and looked at the others. Time was up. He had to go. He turned around to start heading down the alleyway, stopped to face the others, and turned again to start running again. Everyone watched the dark green Hulk disappear in the darkness.

Cole continued running down the alley and jumped to climb on the side of the wall, bits of brick falling under him. Then he jumped to grab the walkway that connects to two buildings and swung on it like a monkey on a jungle gym to swing himself onto the roofs and continued running and saw light behind him. The earth ninja used his hands to vault himself over an air conditioner and ran up the inclined side of a fire escape and used it to jump over to the next building and light shined past him and landed on the rooftop. He hoped that they didn't see him and kept running till he was outside the city. But there were only two questions though.

Where will he go?

And was he able to transform back to himself?

* * *

**And I left you all in another cliffhanger. So what did you think? Can't wait to see all the reviews. I am having so much fun with this story. Have a wonderful weekend and see you all next week. :)**


	9. Missing Research

**Hey everyone, happy Friday and time for an update. I don't have anything much to say for this because I think it's a filler chapter, but anyway I hope you enjoy it. **

* * *

**Chapter 8: Missing Research**

The sound of birds chirping across the morning sky on a dense jungle brought life. The sound of rushing water cascaded down a fall and tumbled onto the rocks below. Light poured through the leafy canopies to bring humidity from a recent rainfall during the night to the jungle. Not only brought humidity, the light shined onto a raven-haired teen as he laid on a flat wet rock near the waterfall with the minuscule droplets wetting his back and hair. The boy then shifted and groaned to pry his eyes open.

The boy finally managed to pry his eyes open to groan as he prompt himself up with his elbows to have his bare chest off the wet ground. He felt his amber eyes adjusting to the light and looked around to find himself alone in the middle of the jungle. He then looked down at himself to see that he was almost naked if the stretched sweatpants weren't there. But they looked like they were extra-large five times that his normal waist to have him grab a length like he was making a ponytail to have it fit around him as he stood up. He looked at the legs of his pants to be ripped and torn. He kept looking around at himself and his surroundings to draw up one question. "What happened?" he asked himself.

…

For sometime, Cole has been trekking through the humid jungle to find a way out. He had to use one hand to keep a grip on his sweatpants to keep them from falling and the other to move thick vegetation aside. He didn't even care what kept impaling his bare feet to have bits of blood well out. He'll have to ask Lucas to heal those up once he finds an exit or if they find him at all. But how did he even wind up here in the first place? He remembered being in his room and passed out to find himself here. Nothing else.

The earth ninja kept venturing into the forest, finding his exit, but heard a familiar squawk from the other native birds and looked up to see a dark blue feathered falcon perched on a branch. He smiled. _I recognized that bird from anywhere. _he said to himself and waved his hands in front of him. The bird squawked and flapped his wings to take flight and flew away. Cole had the wild hunch and followed after the bird until he walked to an open grassland near a small lake. He heard something whine and looked up as his hair was being ruffled by wind and a shadow casted over him. It was the Bounty.

The Ninja of Earth watched the flying vessel land on shore of the lake and the ramp was slowly lowered in front of him. Cole had no second thought and climbed up to reach the deck with a small trail of blood behind from his punctured feet. He looked around as everyone was gathering around him and all had worried and confused looks on their faces. He was more confused now. "Uh…Can anyone explain to me what happened here?" he asked.

Everyone looked at him confused. Does he remember what happened last night? They remember on what they saw in the alley, but he doesn't? Odd. Sighing, Zane walked up to him and placed a hand on his shoulder. "There's a lot to explain, brother." he stated. Cole furrowed his bushy brows in confusion.

…

"Oh where is it? My research has to be here." a girl panicked softly.

Betty has been searching high and low in her lab to find her research papers on the Nanomeds. She heard that her supervisor and Cole checked out of the hospital the other day and it has given her the chance to continue her work. Although the university decommissioned her research and scarped the machine, the youngest scientist kept begging the university board to let her continue since the Nanomeds kept Cole alive, but the board had to deny the request for they don't want another meltdown on their grounds. Sighing, Betty accepted the defeat, but went behind their backs to find her work. She just had to find it first.

"For crying out loud." she barked at herself. "Where did I or Blolasky put those files? I know they're here somewhere." and opened a filing cabinet to furrow her brows as it was empty. Odd. Yesterday she saw the cabinet was full, but now empty. She couldn't fathom it. Not only what happened to her research, but what happened to her project? _That cabinet was full of cellular work and now the next gone. _she thought. "What happened to my lab?" she asked herself.

"Betty," a familiar voice said. "Are you in here?"

Betty looked up from her rant on the voice and directed his head to the door. She knew that voice from anyone. She smiled to see her supervisor walk through the door; all healthy from the hospital. But what was he doing here though? "Blolasky, what are you doing here?" she asked with a small smile. "The university will know you're here when you're supposed to be home and recovering." She chuckled on him slipping out of his vacation days, but stopped as he looked different. His looks weren't different, but the way he was dress. She would normally see him dressed in a polo and khaki pants, but was dressed in dark green camouflage colors with combat boots with an insignia of a lieutenant on his chest and shoulder. "Blolasky?" she asked.

"Hello Betty." another voice said.

Betty directed her head to the other voice to see a man with snowy white hair and white mustache dressed in a navy blue suit with badges on his chest with the symbol of general. The youngest scientist recognized who he was. She known him for a long time. "Father." she said while crossing her arms to give him an annoyed look.

General Theodore Ross of the Special Forces of Ninjago. A man that has been serving his roles to become the general of the forces. But also father of Betty while his wife and her mother passed away when she was little and been there for her since then. But have been distant ever since he became the general and been nosy in her research or other university discoveries. Seeing a purpose to help him in the Forces. "Hello Sweetie," he said. "It's been awhile hasn't it?"

Betty hasn't created a smile and kept her arms crossed. She wasn't thrilled to see her father since he kept nosing into her research. Their relationship hasn't been mending since then and been distant to see each other. "What do you want?" she asked coldly. "I thought we don't see each other till Thanksgiving or do you have to work that holiday and this is the only time you can see me until next year. Again."

The general chuckled lightly and walked up to his only daughter and placed both hands on her shoulders. Betty sighed and shrugged them off and walked away to continue searching for her work. Ross felt a bit upset that she was shunning him, but he understood a reason why, but it wasn't because of seeing each other. It was something else. "It's not that." he replied, but was still ignored. "My lieutenant and I know what you're looking for."

This time, Betty stopped. Lieutenant? She looked at Blolasky to see him nod and turned to her father. "What did you say?" she asked. "You know him and where my research is?"

Before Blolasky could reply, Ross stepped forward and seated his daughter in one of the chairs. "You see Betty," he began. "Blolasky here is my bird's eye view when I heard about your project on the Nanomeds. Blolasky is a man of cellular biology as you are, but also part of the Forces. So he's been filling me on the details of your work. As for your work, it's safe in our archives. We know about your discovery and success."

Betrayed. That's what Betty felt. Her father was behind her missing work and had a…spy from her father. Why does he care for the Nanomeds? Angrily, the youngest scientist stood up to walk away, but Blolasky stood in front of her exit. She now felt betrayed from him too. They both worked together and now was on the general's side. "I can't believe you!" she exclaimed, close to screaming. "Why can't you leave me alone and my work, General? I am seventeen and don't need you hovering and fathering me. Why do you care for the Nanomeds after that close meltdown last week?"

"Because Betty, we know that your work succeeded." Ross stated. "We know what the highest energy wave can do to a person. But after seeing a ninja surviving it, we know they work."

What was he talking about? How does he know all of this if Blolasky was recovering too? But she knew he was talking about Cole. The ninja that survived. But why does he care? She began to think it over deeply and silently gasped. "You're planning on using my research as a way to help you, aren't you?" she asked.

Rossed stepped up and placed a hand on her shoulder and gestured towards Blolasky. "Blolasky here too has been effected by the Nanomeds." he said. "When that bolt struck him." Blolasky quickly got into a boxing position and began to throw punches in the air like he was actually fighting. He looked like one of those boxing type of kangaroos. But Betty could see how fast those punches were. "After a few tests, he's faster, stronger, and agile. He's a super soldier." and Blolasky smiled and returned to standing. The general smiled and turned to face his daughter. "But I'm curious though on the one who survived and witnessed something special of him that's classified from you knowing."

Classified? What was so special for her father to keep secret or have Cole classified? She knew that he survived the radiation, but still. If Blolasky has the Nanomeds in him too like Cole, does he have the same physical condition? Betty thought it over to realize the truth and turned to her father. "I know what you're doing now." she barked. "Not only you stole my research to use it as an advantage, but use it as a weapon too. Like Cole."

Stole? That word didn't seem to describe what the general was thinking of. Sure he stole his daughters research with Blolsky's help, but he sees it a way to help. The general simply chuckled. "It's a little of both." he gently rebutted. "But the ninja that survived has something extraordinary in him and we need to…conduct a few tests on him."

Betty gasped. She knew what he was going to do to Cole. "Leave him alone, General." she said. "He has nothing to do with you. And he won't join your ranks. He is not a weapon."

Ross stepped up and pulled her to a hug while she protested it. "I'm sorry, Sweetheart," he whispered in her ear. Betty tried to keep pulling away from his embrace, but he had a grip on her. "But it'll happen. He's a rare person. He's got something in there that can aid us." and lets go of her. He turned on his heels and left the lab with Blolasky behind him.

Betty felt herself burning inside. Her father was all behind this. Using her research as a weapon and been using her. That would also explain the large funding to build the machine. But then felt her blood turn to ice when she thought of Cole. Her father was gonna conduct experiments on him because he said he was different. And Blolasky. Her supervisor and friend was on the general's side. She felt betrayed. Even more.

Then something came to her. She reached into her pockets to pull out a key and walked up to her terminal and opened a drawer. She inserted the key into a hidden slot and turned it to hear a clasp open and a small flap of thin wood opened up. The raven-haired teen reached in to pull out a small flash-drive attached to a lanyard. Inside, Betty knew it held all of her research than the files she had and that Blolasky never knew of and it held something to it. Sure she may have been searching for her work, but it was the files first then the flash-drive. But also to keep it hidden from her father. "I've got to find Cole." she said to herself, slipped the portable drive in her small purse and left.

* * *

**So what did you think? I think that this chapter was a filler and a bit crappy but still it gives off some important parts for the story. Anyway, hoped you liked it and have a wonderful weekend and see you all next week. :)**


	10. Heartbeats the Trigger

**Hey everyone, happy Friday. Time for another update. I got nothing to say so enjoy more of Cole Smash!**

* * *

**Chapter 9: Heartbeats the Trigger**

"Okay I'm confused here." said Cole, confused. "What exactly happened to me again?"

After a warm shower and some fresh clothes, Cole sat on the mahogany table in the bridge while Lucas had wetted a rag in his hands to heal the small cuts on his feet. The earth ninja couldn't wrap his brain around the explanation that they had given him. They said he transformed into something large and green to create a hole in the wall; which they spent all night repairing. Then they said he didn't recognize who they were when he nearly squeezed Lloyd like a Constrictai would and attacked Lucas. Then they let him run away before the police arrived and fled to the jungle to wake up the next morning normal. This was confusing him entirely. "There was no way that happened to me." he finished while Lucas healed the last cut. He was thankful for him to have his powers still to heal injuries.

Lucas ringed the washrag and tossed it onto the table to stand up. "Oh but it did." he rebutted lightly. "Our earth brother can transform into something that's five times bigger than him. Who's able to rip a hunk off a dumpster like it was paper? And even become enraged when he sees a threat from anyone before he recognized his family before killing them."

Cole felt guilty on that last statement. He may have not remembered much, bits and pieces, but what the others told him, made him guilty. He was the leader and his main objective was to lead and protect the team. Not become a giant and nearly harm his family even when Lloyd was slowly healing his ribs. But why couldn't he remember everything? Sighing, the Ninja of Earth placed a hand on his forehead to brush his wet bangs away to rubs his temples. "I don't believe this." he said quietly.

Zane looked at the leader and saw the glint of guilt in his amber eyes. He, and everyone else, could see it and felt pity for him. Something must've happened to him to become it last night. But what? The ice ninja felt pity again and placed a comfort hand on his shoulder. "Cole," he began. "Do you remember anything at all? Anything that could've…trigger it?"

Cole looked at him quizzically and nodded. He remembered feeling sick and angry about the loud noise and saw darkness. Nothing else. "I remember waking up because whoever was fighting made me annoyed and angered." he replied.

"Sorry." Lucas and Kai apologized, guilty, while looking away.

The earth ninja looked at them to nod as he forgave them. "But after I woke up," he continued. "I felt sick to my stomach. I went to the bathroom to throw up and nothing came out. Then went to the sink to splash my face and the fighting was getting louder. It made me annoyed and angry. I noticed my hands and veins were green and had a huge headache. But as soon as I opened my eyes, they were green than amber and I blacked out. Nothing else."

Interesting. Everyone was surprised to hear about this. Cole remembered the event before his transformation well enough to help them resolve this. But how can they resolve it even more? "So we know about the before part." said Nya. "How do we help fix this? We don't have any data or hypothesizes to help."

_Data?_ Zane wondered. _That's it._ Zane quickly left the bridge with everyone puzzled, even Sensei Wu was curious on last night's events. A few minutes passed and the ice ninja returned with a microscope, a small rack of test tubes, and empty syringes. Everyone raised an eyebrow as the nindroid placed the items next to Cole and took the microscope to the bridge's large computer and attached a cord to the lens and placed it on the counter. He turned it on and the screen went white.

"Uh...Zane, what are you doing?" Jay asked, puzzled. "We're trying to figure out what's wrong with Cole. Now isn't the time to do some chemistry or biology."

The white ninja ignored him and walked up to Cole. "What does it look like I'm doing, Jay?" he asked sarcastically and picked up a syringe. "I am gonna see what's wrong with Cole. My algorithms couldn't help us last night when I scanned our brother in his form. But now that he is normal, I can get a better look." He removed the cap to reveal the small thin sterile needle and grabbed Cole's right arm. "I need you to remain calm." he told him. "If anger triggered you, we don't want another accident happening."

Cole took a deep breath and nodded. "Alright Frosty," he said. "I'm ready." The earth ninja watched Zane tap his inner elbow to see the vein enlarge and watched him slide the needle in. Zane pulled the plunger back to draw out a small amount of blood and carefully slid the needle out. But it made Cole flinch a little. "Ah!" he yelped quietly and saw a small thin red line cascade down his arm.

Lucas saw the blood run down his arm while Cole held it and grabbed the white rag. "Hang on." he said. "I'll get it." and felt the rag become wet and dark from the water in his hands. He gently grabbed Cole's arm to clean the blood off his arm to stain the rag in a murky color and stopped as he saw the puncture wound. "What the?" he paused and watched the wound rebind itself and close up without a scar or mark. The Ninja of Water was stunned. "Did anyone else see that?" he asked and received a few nods.

"How did that happen when Lucas didn't even get a chance to use his powers to heal it?" Lloyd asked.

"It must be the Nanomeds in Cole's body." Zane suggested. Everyone looked at him confused. "Basically from what Elizabeth said at the ball was that the Nanomeds are to help heal." he continued. "The help of the gamma radiation increased their ability to rebuild cells when needed. In which it's how Cole survived and how it happened recently."

Everyone thought it over and saw it made sense to them now. Lucas looked at the rag and tossed it next to Cole. "Still makes me wonder how the cuts on his feet had to be healed by me and not by the Nanomeds." he wondered.

"Must be an extension like our powers before." Kai suggested while hooking an arm around Laurie's waist.

"Must be so." Zane agreed and walked back to the microscope. He picked up the small thin glass slate and dripped a drop of Cole's blood on the piece of glass and placed another slate on top of the blood. The blood was pressed to be flat and spread on the slate and the glass was slid underneath the microscope and turned the knob to focus it onto the screen.

Everyone turned towards the screen to see something blurry red as Zane kept looking up and down to focus it better. After a few minutes, he found a better view and stepped back, astonished to what he saw. On the screen it showed Cole's red blood cells with faint tints of green around the cells. Cole felt the blood drain from his face at the sight of his blood and looked at his arms to imagine billions of blood cells like that inside him. _That's not normal._ he thought. _I'm convinced now._

"Uh... Is that any good?" Jay stuttered. "That doesn't look normal to me."

"Indeed it isn't normal." said Zane. "Red blood cells aren't suppose to have this at all." He turned to Nya. "Nya, can you see if we have any penicillan or antibotics?" he asked, nicely. "I have a theory." The samurai looked at Cole and nodded as she left. Moments later, she returned with a small glass jar in hand and handed it to Zane. "I do hope this works." he muttered to himself, but it was still audible for everyone to hear. "But if not, then I don't know what to do."

Cole looked up at him to give him a small smile. "It's alright, Zane." he said. "You're just trying to help figure what's causing it." He saw the ice ninja smile back and carefully handed him the other syringe.

Zane appreicated the support from his earth brother and carefully slid the needle through the cork stopper and pulled the plunger back while tilting the bottle of medicine of clear liquid and pulled the needle out. He looked at the microscope to remove the top glass slate and dripped a few drops on the blood and placed the glass back on top and observed the microscope. Everyone watched the blood cells in amazement as they were slowly returning to normal with the green tint slowly fading away. It seems to be working now. Suddenly the green tint returned and rapidly became entirely green and grew larger than before and broke the glass to make everyone jump at the sound of broken glass. Zane's hypothesis failed.

"Ok that's definitely not normal!" Jay exclaimed.

Cole looked at his blood ceels to sigh. He agreed with Jay. That's not normal. It's never suppose to be that. Blood is red, not green. Cole could imagine his blood becoming like that whenever he changed. It now made him sick to imagine it and looked at everyone else as they looked worried for him. He looked away to hang his head and averted his gaze to see the microscope glass slates and saw the green smudge dripping onto the counter. "I... I..." he stuttered while running his finger through his thick black hair. Sighing, he raised his head and looked at his intermediate family. "I don't know what to do now."

Zane saw the depression in his amber eyes and looked at the blood. _There's got to be more to it than changing to green._ Zane wondered. He rolled up his left sleeve of his gi and opened the panel on his arm and a blue light shined on the blood to scan and appeared on the screen in his arm. He then tapped on the small keypad to analyze the blood and blink in surprise. "That explains everything then." he said.

"What does?" Laurie asked.

Zane looked at the results in his databanks and closed his panel. He then looked at Cole; he wasn't gonna like the news. "My sensors have shown me high levels of gamma radiation in your blood, Cole." he announced. The others quickly perked up on the news. "But the thing is that it's not dangerous when exposed in open air like most radiation would be." Now everyone gave him confused looks. "Meaning that the radiation is isolated to where it's not dangerous in open air, but perhaps deadly and dangerous in contact."

"Meaning?" Kai interjected to know the rest.

Zane sighed while looking at Cole. "Meaning that Cole's blood is deadly when in contacted to another being." he stated. The other stood still in worry and looked at Cole. The earth ninja looked pale about his poisonous blood inside his body and looked at the others, scared. But he was still alive even if it was inside him. Zane thought it over and looked at them. "But I'm sensing that the reason why Cole isn't affected at all is probably because his body is used to it. The Nanomeds have made his cells and body immune to it. Cole, your blood is poisonous and we must be careful with it."

Cole felt the blood in his face drain again at the sound of poisonous blood. He couldn't believe it. But it came from the nindroid's mouth as he knows more than the others. He didn't know what to do now. If his blood is dangerous, then he'll have to be careful with it. They all don't know the dangers if his blood came in contact to them like from a blood transfusion, but they'll be careful when near him. They won't avoid him, but will do everything to help him. Sighing, the raven-haired teen laid down on the table to stare at the slanted ceilings as everything was happening to him too fast. "So…" he paused. "What can we do to prevent me from turning into…the big guy? If anger made me and my blood become green, then there must be some way to let me know I'm about to change. But what?"

That was the question. What could they use to help Cole avoid changing? There aren't like machines that can announce when your transformation is about to happen. So what could they do? "There might be a way." Sensei Wu's voice chimed. Cole perked his head to look at his teacher's grey eyes. There is? "Our hearts beat rapidly or slow based from our emotions. If you are calmed, your heart beats in a soothing drum. But with anger, they begin to beat faster than you would imagine. In order to prevent yourself from changing, you must be watch your heart rate." The elder turned to Nya. "Nya, do you know if we have any of those wrist watches that can detect your hearts?"

The samurai looked at the teach to nod. She knew what she meant. "You mean a heart rate monitor?" she corrected him. "I think they're in the training room closet. I'll go take a look." and left. Moments later, she returned again with a small watch in her hand and handed it to Cole. "This should do fine for you." she said, reassuring.

The Ninja of Earth looked at the black watch in his hands and wondered if it'll work. Hearts beat normal when calmed and relaxed, but if angered, like Sensei Wu said, it changes beats. Without hesistation, Cole placed the cold metal side over the veins on his left wrist and fed the belt through the loop like he was putting on a belt for pants and made sure it was tightened so it wouldn't fall off. He then pressed the red button at the bottom of the screen to lighten it up and saw a small digital heart beating next to a set of zeros till they changed to ninety-nine. That relieved him now. "So now what?" he asked.

Zane walked up to him and took his hand. He used his fingers to fiddle with the buttons on the sides to change the watch. Cole watched him go into the _settings _selection and made changes to the watch and then switched it back to the heart rate. He had no idea what the Ninja of Ice has done, but hopefully something helpful. "As Sensei said, our heart rates beat normal at either eighty to a hundred beats per minute." said Zane. "But whenever nervous or angered, our heartbeats increase. As well as performing activites to increase cardio. So in order to alert Cole from changing, I set the settings in his watch to warn him tht if his heart rates goes over one hundred and fifty beats, he needs to calm down."

"So anything between one-fifty or two hundred is considered dangerous?" Laurie inquired.

"Theorically." Zane objected. "I'm not sure entirely which heart rate triggers him, but I'm hypothesising too that if it's anything higher, Cole would lose himself." He turned to Cole. "So brother, just be careful before you endanger yourself."

Cole looked at his watch and nodded. He'll be careful now. "So that's all taken care of," he said, slightly satisfied. "What can we do now to prevent me from changing? If the watch warns me, then there's got to be a way to keep my anger down."

Everyone shrugged their shoulders. Nothing came to mind. "I don't know." Lucas admitted. "But we'll think of way to help you." That assured Cole a little. Hope there was some ways to help him.

"If that doesn't work, then what?" Jay asked. Everyone had to agree on the lightning ninja's question. If they don't find a solution, what could they do then to help Cole? "But Cole, you should've seen yourself." he said, estatic. "You were...a Hulk when you were changed."

_Hulk?_ Cole wondered. _Is that what they're calling me? _The earth ninja furrowed his bushy brows at Jay. "I'm not anything like the old wrestler!" he retorted. "Jay, my...transformation is serious! I could've almost killed you last night if Lucas didn't stop you all like last night like he said! So right now, don't see this an advantage to the team!" He kept furrowing his brows until they eased a bit as he began hearing a beeping sound. He quickly looked at his watch to see his heart rate at a hundred and twenty-six beats per minute. "I though you said it would warn me if it went over one-fifty, Zane." he said, concerned.

The ice ninja walked up to Cole and took his hand that had the watch to inspect it. "It should be." he wondered confused. The nindroid watched the digital numbers slow down to Cole's heart rate. He shrugged his shoulders. "It must be testing that's all. But that's the first step in your control. Don't lose your anger to your family."

_Don't lose your anger to your family._ Cole said to himself. _Got it. _The earth ninja looked at his watch to watch it rise and fall and then looked at everyone else. "So again, now what?" he asked.

A loud alarm rang in everyone's ears suddenly. Nya quickly ran over to the large computer to change the view of Cole's green blood to the map of Ninjago. The samurai moved her fingertips in rapid speed to search for the danger across the land and the screen changed to the view of the trouble. And it looked like the streets of Ninjago City. "Well this should be simple for you guys." she stated. "Zane's falcon picked up some Serpentine activities going on."

Jay sighed while rolling his eyes. "What do those snakes want now?" he asked, annoyed.

"Who cares." Kai barked. "We got some snakes to deal with." and spun into his armored suit and sheathed his katana onto his back.

Cole watched the others spin into their while Laurie remained still for a moment and quickly spun into her dusty yellowish-orange tornado and into her orange gi with her bō staff in hand. _She's been practicing well._ Cole thought. Even Lloyd spun into his green suit and pulled his mask over his face. The others were bringing him along because he'll sneak out again like many times before. When everyone else was ready, Cole was the only one left and quickly spun into his black suit and put his scythe in the holster attached to his back. He moved his sleeve to see his heart rate increase a little and slowly ease down. _I have to be careful now. _he thought and moved his sleeve back. He looked at his teammates and pulled his mask over his face. "I ready." he said and ran out the door with the others behind him.

Time to save the city.

* * *

**So now Cole needs to be careful or else he'll be angry. How will that go for him? Don't know. Find out next week. Have a wonderful weekend and see you all next week. :)**


End file.
